HV 


UC-NRLF 


SB    Ebfl    7M5 


I 


ERNEST 
GORDON 


RUSSIAN  PROHIBITION 


STUDIES  AND  DOCUMENTS  OF  THE  ANTI-ALCOHOL  MOVEMENT.    No.  I 


RUSSIAN 
PROHIBITION 

By  ERNEST   GORDON 


The  emancipation  from  this  fearful  evil  will  form  an  epoch  in  the 
life  of  humanity,  and  that  epoch  is,  I  believe,  dawning." 

—Count  Lyof  Tolstoi. 
"Warum  die  Menschen  sich  betauben." 


1916 

THE  AMERICAN  ISSUE  PUBLISHING  CO. 
WMtcrvllle.  Ohio 


S- 


Copyright,    1916,    by 

AMERICAN    ISSUE   PUBLISHING    CO. 
WESTERVILLE,   OHIO 


Russian  Prohibition 

THE  Iconastasis,  or  great  screen  back  of  the 
altar  in  Russian  churches  is  pierced  by 
three  doors.  The  officiating  priests  alone 
are  allowed  to  go  through  the  central  one. 
Once,  however,  in  his  life,  the  ruler  of  all  the  Russias 
is  also  permitted  to  pass  within.  This  solemn  priv- 
ilege might  well  have  been  exercised  after  the  signing 
of  the  vodka  Prohibition  rescript,  for  no  other  single 
action  of  the  Tsar's  life  can  ever  have  the  far-ramify- 
ing moral  influence  that  this  already  has  had.  His 
great  ancestor,  Peter  the  Great,  in  building  the  capital 
city  on  the  Neva  is  said  to  have  opened  a  window  for 
his  people  to  look  out  upon  Europe.  The  Tsar  of  pres- 
ent-day Russia  has  cut  through  a  window  upon  our 
most  baffling  social  problem  and  the  light  from  it  is 
streaming  not  out  of,  but  into  Europe. 

There  is  a  commonplace  observation  in  all  social 
agitation  which  contrasts  governmental  willingness  to 
do  for  animals  with  its  extreme  reluctance  to  care 
properly  for  human  beings.  One  recalls  the  power- 
ful passage  in  Octave  Mirbeau's  novel,  where  a  Pa- 
risian carpenter  is  summoned  into  the  country  to 
build  hen-houses  on  a  rich  man's  estate.  In  a  bitter 
soliloquy  the  workman  contrasts  the  light  and  roomy 
quarters  of  the  fowls  with  the  sordid  warrens  in  which 
the  proletariat  of  his  arrondisement  are  crowded. 
The  Russian  peasant  temperance  leader  Tchelichov 
was  wont  to  describe  how  quickly  the  authorities,  on 
finding  that  the  naphtha  leakage  from  Volga  steam- 
ers was  killing  the  fish,  intervened  to  make  the  com- 
panies substitute  steel  for  wooden  barges.  How  much 
better  is  a  man  than  a  fish!  In  burning  words  he 


44841.7 


r  ';/,,//,'. RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

would  upbraid  those  in  power  for  their  indifference 
to  the  systematic  poisoning  of  the  Russian  masses 
with  vodka.  But  at  last  the  people  have  been  consid- 
ered and  it  is  doubtful  if  any  edict  or  act  in  their  favor 
— peace  proclamation,  declaration  of  emancipation, 
revolution — has  brought  with  it  such  widespread  and 
immediate  relief  as  this  simple  prohibitive  word.  The 
greatest  social  revolution  of  our  generation  has  come 
into  being  as  quietly  as  the  dawning  of  a  summer 
morning.  If  the  question  had  been  drafted  before  the 
fact  there  would  have  been  plenty  to  insist  that  the 
river  of  vodka,  the  mightiest  alcoholic  flood  flowing 
through  the  social  life  of  Europe,  could  no  more  be 
stopped  by  fiat  than  Mother  Volga  herself  in  her  vast 
windings.  Russian  Prohibition  has  shown  beyond 
the  possibility  of  appeal,  that  no  natural  law  is  back 
of  the  drink  shop's  existence,  making  this  inevitably 
and  fatally  present  among  us,  but  only  moral  laziness, 
tradition,  and  above  all,  the  determination  to  make 
money  out  of  the  alcoholic  misery  of  men.  And  if,  by 
any  great  mishap,  Prohibition  should  not  continue 
after  the  war — a  thing  extremely  unlikely — it  will  at 
least  have  furnished  the  proof  on  an  imperial  scale  and 
never  to  be  gainsaid,  of  its  social  value. 


I. 

ST.  VLADIMIR,  after  a  victory  over  the  Tartars, 
was  wont  to  throw  open  all  the  drink  shops  to   his 
loyal  subjects  without  charge  that  they  might 
duly    celebrate,    and    there    was    much    of    St. 
Vladimir's  spirit  in  the  way  the  Russo-Japanese  war 
was  conducted.     From  one  point  of  view,  at  least,  the 
campaigns  in  Manchuria  resembled  a  scuffle  between 
a  drunken  guardsman  and  a  sober  policeman.    All  the 
evidence  goes  to  show  that  vodka  had  the  right  of 

8 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

way  as  unquestionably  as  Milwaukee  beer  in  the  Span- 
ish-American war.  Perhaps  more  so.  One  recalls 
the  Russian  naval  attack  on  the  trawlers  of  the  Dogger 
Bank,  an  episode  which  awakened  the  hilarity  of  the 
whole  world.  It  has  usually  been  attributed  to  al- 
coholized visions  of  Japanese  warships.  An  eye-wit- 
ness of  the  Manchurian  campaign  (Ulrich,  Die  Fetter- 
probe  der  Russischen  Annee)  describes  in  various 
passages  the  drunkenness  among  Russian  army  offi- 
cers. Thus  (p.  196)  "In  Vladivostock  I  entered  a  cafe 
one  evening  with  a  German  merchant.  It  was  filled 
with  officers,  the  most  of  whom  were  drunk, — one  old 
captain,  so  much  so  that  he  fell  off  his  chair  and  slept, 
lying  on  the  floor.  Meanwhile,  in  one  corner  of  the 
cafe,  a  quarrel  had  broken  out.  There  was  a  regular 
explosion  of  revolvers  and  two  officers,  apparently 
wounded  severely,  were  left  lying."  Again  (p.  198)  at 
Charbin  "I  saw  to  my  astonishment  at  the  police  sta- 
tion 83  officers'  swords.  On  my  question  as  to  what 
this  meant  the  Chief  of  Police  at  Charbin,  Colonel  Dun- 
din,  replied  that  they  were  the  swords  of  officers  taken 
up  in  the  preceding  night  for  gross  disorder.  Only  the 
worst  cases  were  arrested."  That  these  instances  were 
typical  seems  clear  from  the  statistical  reports  of  the 
campaign.  The  official  statement  of  sicknesses  of  a 
psychical  nature  among  army  officers  in  the  Asiatic 
service  assigns  to  epileptic,  hysteric,  neurasthenic, 
traumatic  and  other  psychoses  relatively  insignificant 
percentages.  When  we  come  to  alcoholic  psychoses, 
however,  we  have  another  story.  These  amounted  to 
34.56  per  cent  of  the  total.  Adding  to  this  figure  per- 
centages for  acute  alcoholism,  5.63,  we  have  a  total  of 
over  40  per  cent.  This  goes  far  to  explain  the  misman- 
agement, bad  generalship  and  final  debacle  on  the 
steppes  of  Manchuria  in  1904. 

9 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

One  can  hardly  say  that  the  Russian  government 
gave  more  than  tardy  heed  to  the  warning  which  these 
experiences  presented.  It  was  not  until  the  middle 
of  1914  that  a  ukase  was  issued  putting  rigid  anti-al- 
cohol regulations  into  force  in  the  army.  In  the  nick 
of  time,  indeed !  Two  months  later  came  the  crash 
which  was  to  tax  Russia's  morale  and  resources  as  at 
no  period  since  Napoleonic  days. 

The  decree  for  alcohol  reform  ran  as  follows : 

"His  Majesty,  the  Emperor,  in  his  constant  care 
for  the  welfare  of  the  army,  to  protect  it  from  the  in- 
jurious consequences  of  the  use  of  alcohol,  proved 
such  by  science  and  experience,  commands  that  the 
following  measures  against  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks 
in  the  army  be  strictly  followed.  In  this  way  the 
strength,  health,  and  psychic  vigor  of  the  army,  which 
are  so  necessary,  both  in  peace  and  war  time,  will  be 
held  to  an  ever  higher  standard. 

"THE  MINISTER  OF  WAR, 
"General  Adjutant  Sukhomlinov." 

The  regulations  which  follow  would  seem  rev- 
olutionary if  they  had  not  been  rendered  almost  in- 
significant by  the  later  general  Prohibition  regime  in 
Russia.  As  it  is  they  give  the  impression  of  an  elec- 
tric light  shining  full  strength  after  sunrise.A 

A  It  may  be  worth  while  to  record  some  of  the  regulations  as  fur- 
nishing a  standard  for  other  armies  and  navies.  The  first  paragraphs  deal 
with  officers;  the  later  ones  with  enlisted  men. 

"Army  officers,  especially  those  of  the  highest  rank,  are  under  obli- 
gation to  carry  out  all  measures  which  will  diminish  the  use  of  alcoholic 
drinks  in  military  units  under  their  charge.  In  every  officer's  papers  must 
be  particularly  entered  what  his  relation  to  alcoholic  drink  is.  In  the 
attests  of  military  officials  of  all  ranks  it  must  be  mentioned  what  their 
attitude  is  to  the  task  of  lessening  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks  in  vthe  army 
divisions  under  them.  ...  At  all  times  of  service — order  of  the  day, 
watch,  drills,  shooting  practice,  review  of  troops,  manoeuvers,  alarm-can, 
mobilization  and  all  other  military  service  the  use  of  alcoholic  drink  is 
forbidden.  .  .  .  The  officers'  casinos  are  not  to  be  places  for  drinking. 
The  serving  of  alcoholic  drinks  can  occur  only  at  the  chief  meals.  There 
can  be  no  buffets  for  the  sale  of  wine  and  liquors.  .  .  .  Officers'  co- 
operatives cannot  deliver  alcoholic  drink  on  credit.  Branches  of  such 
co-operatives  in  war  areas  are  absolutely  forbidden  to  sell  alcoholic  drink. 
.  .  .  Commanders  of  army  divisions  have,  with  the  aid  of  regimental 

10 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

On  July  30,  1914,  the  Russian  government  ordered 
the  mobilization  of  its  army.  Some  days  later  a  tem- 
porary vodka  Prohibition  went  into  effect.  This  im- 
mensely facilitated  the  gigantic  task.  According  to 
M.  Bark,  the  Minister  of  Finance,  in  an  interview  with 
a  representative  of  the  Petit  Parisien,  the  mobilization 
went  off  with  a  regularity  which  surpassed  all  expec- 
tations. "There  had  been  difficulties  in  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war  and  we  looked  for  a  certain  minus  in  the 
number  of  men  called  out.  But  there  was  none.  More 
soldiers  presented  themselves  than  were  expected. "B 

chaplains,  to  arrange  for  the  organization  of  temperance  unions.  ...  In 
order  that  the  officers  may  be  familiar  with  the  injurious  action  of  alcohol 
upon  the  human  organism  the  regimental  physicians  are  obliged,  at  least 
twice  yearly,  to  hold  lectures  upon  the  subject  in  the  presence  of  all 
officers.  .  .  .  The  commanders  of  divisions  must  enter  in  their  yearly 
reports  what  has  been  undertaken  in  the  course  of  the  year  in  every  army 
unit  for  the  lessening  of  the  use  of  alcoholic  drink. 

"The  use  of  alcoholic  drink  is  prohibited  to  enlisted  men  of  all  classes 
during  active  service,  including  the  reserves  and  the  Landwehr  during 
their  training.  ...  It  is  not  permitted  to  send  soldiers  into  restaurants, 
wine-shops,  etc.,  to  get  alcoholic  drinks  (i.  e.,  for  the  officers).  ...  It 
is  forbidden  to  promote  any  soldier  to  the  rank  of  non-commissioned  officer 
who  has  been  punished  for  the  use  of  alcoholic  drinks ;  in  fact  to  raise 
his  rank  at  all.  .  .  .  Men  in  the  ranks  in  whom  a  tendency  to  drunkenness 
is  observable  must  be  entered  in  special  lists.  They  are  to  be  under  the 
constant  observation  of  their  superiors,  are  to  forfeit  privileges  of  free 
time  and  must  be  invited  by  the  regimental  chaplain  and  physician  to  in- 
struction. The  families  of  such  men  are  requested  not  to  send  money  to 
them.  In  case  money  comes  it  must  be  entered  in  a  savings  bank  book 
and  given  out  only  under  control  of  the  company  chief.  On  the  dismissal 
of  troops  from  active  service  it  is  forbidden  to  make  payment  for  those 
who  have  been  so  listed.  .  .  .  Lectures  by  the  physicians  on  the  injuri- 
ousness  of  the  use  of  alcohol  must  be  given  to  the  men  at  least  once 
monthly:  to  the  listed  men  once  weekly.  These  must  be  accompanied 
with  demonstrations  with  lantern,  diagrams,  tables,  etc.  Such  tables  and 
pictures  must  be  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  cantonments.  Books  of  anti- 
alcohol  tendency  must  be  procured  for  the  regimental  libraries." — Int. 
Monats.  zur  Erforschung  d.  Alk..  1914. 

B  The  contrast  between  the  two  mobilizations  is  strikingly  pictured 
by  Miss  Brush  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  article: 

"In  the  mobilization  for  the  Japanese  war  the  soldiers  were  carried, 
dead  with  intoxication,  to  the  trains.  When  they  came  to  stations,  those 
who  could  walk  tore  wildly  out  of  the  coaches  for  the  saloons,  and  if  bar- 
keepers refused  to  sell  they  broke  bottles  over  their  heads.  In  terror  the 
drilled  troops  in  charge  of  recruits  telegraphed  ahead  to  stations  to  have 
two  hundred  or  more  soldiers  on  hand  when  the  train  went  through.  Even 
under  such  surveillance  the  men  sometimes  broke  open  the  doors  of  the 
trains  and  tore  up  the  railroad  stations.  Several  commanders  in  one 
quarter  were  terrified  at  getting  three  hundrd  men  without  convoy  and  all 
drunk. 

"An  article  was  printed  recently  in  a  paper  called  the  Voice,  of 
Moscow,  which  stated,  'The  reservists  searched  every  man  as  he  entered 
the  barracks.  All  had  vodka.  The  searchers  always  threw  it  into  the 

11 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

The  government,  for  some  time  previously,  had 
had  measures  under  consideration  for  the  checking  of 
the  colossal  disaster  which  the  Spirits  Monopoly  had 
brought  upon  the  nation.  A  strong  local  option  law 
had  received  favorable  treatment  in  the  Duma.  The 
Emperor  himself,  in  calling  M.  Bark  to  the  Ministry 
of  Finance,  had  impressed  on  him  the  imperative  ne- 
cessity of  alcohol  reform.  In  a  rescript  addressed  to 
the  new  Ministry,  the  Tsar  had  written: 

"I  have  come  to  the  firm  conviction  that  a  duty 
lies  upon  me  before  God  and  Russia  to  introduce  into 
the  management  of  the  state  finances  fundamental  re- 
forms for  the  welfare  of  my  beloved  people.  It  is  not 
meet  that  the  welfare  of  the  Exchequer  should  be  de- 
pendent upon  the  ruin  of  the  spiritual  and  productive 
energies  of  numbers  of  my  loyal  subjects."1 

The  elements  of  a  great  reform,  therefore,  were 
all  present  and  it  needed  but  a  sudden  shock  to  throw 
down  the  precipitate  and  to  clear  the  solution.  This 
came  in  the  declaration  of  war  which  has  proved  to 
be  the  overture  to  one  of  the  most  beneficent  social 
emancipations  which  history  has  yet  seen.  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Watson  has  described  "War's  red  cup"  as  "Sa- 
tan's chosen  drink,"  but  one  can  almost  say  that  by 
its  association  with  Prohibition  it  has  proved  a  cup 
of  blessing  to  Russia. 

street.  In  one  peasant's  rags  eleven  bottles  were  found.  His  eyes  ran 
with  tears  when  he  saw  them  broken.  The  heap  of  shattered  glass  grew. 
A  dirty  stream  of  vodka  flowed  through  the  courtyard.  Many  threw  them- 
selves on  their  knees  and,  in  spite  of  the  dirt,  tried  to  drink  from  the 
pools.  They  were  kicked  back.  Three  truckloads  of  broken  glass  were 
transported.' 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  present  mobilization  to  remind  one  of  that 
disgraceful  scene.  Men  in  the  cleanest  and  newest  of  long  tan  coats  walk 
erect  and  in  sturdy  lines.  As  you  pass  them  on  the  pavements  they  scan 
you  with  a  child-like  gaze,  alert  with  intelligent  wonder." 

1   Quoted  in  the  London  Times,   Russian  Supplement,  Jan.    15,   1915. 

12 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

II. 

THE  evidence  is  practically  unanimous.  It  is 
of  every  type  and  from  every  section  of  the 
Empire.  The  consumption  of  vodka  in  Sep- 
tember, 1913,  was  9,232,921  kegs.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1914,  the  first  complete  month  of  Prohibition, 
it  had  dropped  to  102,714  kegs.  In  the  same  months 
financial  receipts  of  the  Monopoly  collapsed  like  a 
pricked  bladder.  The  decrease  was  actually  98  per 
cent.  Naturally,  drunkenness  declined  pari  passu. 
The  writer  recalls  some  years  ago  watching  the  passers 
on  the  square  in  front  of  the  Nikolai  Station  in  Petro- 
grad,  on  Sunday  afternoons.  Every  other  one  seemed 
to  be  lurching  at  an  angle  of  30  degrees  from  the  nor- 
mal pose  and  the  general  effect  was  that  of  a  group 
of  small  yachts,  tipping  and  twisting,  in  a  rough  sea. 
"We  wandered  day  and  night  in  the  Russian  metrop- 
olis," wrote  Dr.  Helenius,  in  the  fall  of  1914.  "We 
visited  hotels,  restaurants,  side-streets,  alleys.  We 
felt  like  rubbing  our  eyes.  It  seemed  as  if  we  were 
walking  in  a  dream,  for  of  what  one  formerly  saw 
there  was  nothing.  We  found  no  drunken  people." 
"Who  would  have  expected  a  few  months  ago,"  wrote 
the  Petrograd  correspondent  of  (Stockholm)  Svenska 
Dagbladet,  "that  present-day  Petersburg,  the  home  of 
pleasure,  of  excesses,  of  vices,  would,  so  to  speak, 
vanish,  to  emerge  under  a  new  name  and  a  new  ap- 
pearance as  perhaps  Europe's  most  temperate  and 
safest  city.  Those  who  have  not  seen  this  mighty 
metamorphosis  with  their  own  eyes  will  have  diffi- 
culty in  believing  in  its  possibility."  And  another 
journalist,  Renzo  Larco,  writing  in  the  Carrier e  della 
Sera,  adds :  "The  Russians  cannot  believe  their  eyes. 
We  who  read  descriptions  of  the  previous  era  find  it 
hard  to  trust  the  witness  of  these  pessimistic  observers. 

13 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

In  two  months  I  doubt  if  I  have  run  across  more  than 
two  intoxicated."0 

"The  bear  who  walks  like  a  man"  now  walks  like 
a  man  and  not  like  a  sot.  Moscow  was  for  many  years 
overrun  with  an  army  of  professional  beggars  dubbed 
"hunters,"  and  estimated  at  no  less  than  30,000  in 
number.  They  were  drunkards,  thieves,  victims  of 
disgusting  diseases.  Half  of  them  begged  "in  Christ's 
name"  pretending  to  be  crippled,  a  fourth  exploited 
children  as  beggars,  some  operating  with  five  or  more 
little  ones.  The  authorities  would  arrest  them,  send 
them  to  the  workhouse,  and  later  despatch  them  into 
distant  villages,  but  after  a  few  weeks  they  would  be 
back,  often  with  assumed  names,  in  their  old  haunts. 
Prohibition  has  reduced  the  number  of  these  parasites 
amazingly,  the  most  moderate  estimate  I  can  find 
(Official  Police  Report  quoted  in  Vestnik  Tresvosti, 
January,  1915),  being  a  reduction  of  70  per  cent.  The 
night  asylums  of  Moscow  know  them  no  more.  Thus 
the  Morosov  Asylum,  with  1,100  sleeping  places,  has 
at  present  but  250-300  guests;  the  Syromiatnik,  one- 
half  the  usual  number.  The  municipal  asylums  also 
have  few  inmates  now  and  these  are  usually  of  the 
honest  sort.  Petrograd  was  overflowing  with  Polish 
refugees  during  the  weeks  that  the  writer  was  in  the 
city  and  one  of  the  sights  of  the  war  was  the  motley, 
dejected  crowd  of  women  and  children  on  the  steps  of 
the  Polish  church  on  the  Nevsky  Prospekt.  These 

C  It  is  delightful  to  observe  how  people  accommodate  themselves  to 
the  new  situation.  A  Prohibition  city  of  approximately  two  million  peo- 
ple seems,  apparently,  to  the  inhabitants  themselves,  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world.  "One  would  be  inclined  to  imagine."  writes  the 
Petrograd  correspondent  of  Svenska  Dagbladet.  "that  the  taking  away  of 
everything  alcohol'c  would  have  caused  marked  difficulties  among  those 
accustomed  to  it  from  youth.  Yet  neither  among  the  laboring  class  nor 
among  the  cultivated  could  anything  of  the  sort  be  detected.  Although  I 
myself,  for  more  than  30  years,  have  taken  my  glass,  I  cannot  affirm  that 
the  deprivation  has  been  hard.  Nor  do  I  notice  any  desire  for  the  'good 
old  times.  One  feels  better  in  one's  head,  more  elast;c,  and  fitter  for 
work.  I  believe  this  has  been  the  general  experience.  It  is  only  the  first 
step  that  seems  hard.  One  has  not  the  energy  to  break  the  habit  of 
y;ars.  But  with  the  support  of  the  autocrat's  will  all  goes  well." 

14 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

refugees  have  been  temporarily  placed  in  quarters 
usually  occupied  by  the  beggars  and  tramps  of  the 
city.  When  the  question  was  put  to  one  of  the  work- 
ers as  to  where  the  dispossessed  tramps  now  lodged, 
the  answer  came  "People  of  this  class  have  disappeared 
since  Prohibition."  The  city  of  Tula  has  had  a  house 
near  its  hospital,  where  extreme  cases  of  drunkenness 
were  taken  to  sober  off.  We  place  the  number  of  pre- 
Prohibition  and  Prohibition  admissions  in  parallel. 

1913.  1914- 

August,  30  admissions.   [August,         8  admissions. 

September,  30  admissions.  [September,  3  admissions. 
October,  (Not  given.)  JQctober,  3  admissions. 
November,  96  admissions.  | November.  3  admissions. 
December,  141  admissions.  [December,  3  admissions. 

The  place  has  been  changed  into  a  reception  room 
for  the  hospital !  A  Kasan  temperance  society  ran  a 
hospital  for  alcoholists.  In  the  report  for  1914,  178  al- 
coholists  are  mentioned  as  in  residence  and  1,421  cases 
as  having  been  treated  in  the  course  of  the  year.  Aftei 
the  beginning  of  the  war  no  new  ones  came  so  that 
by  January  I,  1915,  all  were  discharged.  The  drunk- 
ards have  not  only  left  but  have  taken  their  children 
and  wives  out  of  other  asylums  and  set  up  family  life 
again.  Not  more  than  one-half  of  the  former  number 
oi  night  lodgers  come  now  to  the  shelter  attached  to 
this  work.  In  the  Society's  restaurants  there  were 
123,830  gratis  tickets  for  food  distributed  in  1914,  and 
100,029  free  tea  tickets.  After  Prohibition  the  num- 
ber diminished  by  50  per  cent.2 

No  one  knows  more  about  these  alcoholic  wrecks 
than  Father  Mirtov,  the  pastor  of  a  large  church  on 
the  Obvodny  Canal,  near  the  Warsaw  Station.  Father 
Mirtov  is  a  man  of  sympathetic  personality,  of  tall 
figure,  vigorous,  fresh  manner,  flowing  brown  beard 

2  Vtstnik    Tresvosti.    March,    1915. 

15 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

and  leonine  mane.  The  kindly  eyes  flash  with  inter- 
est through  the  horn-rimmed  spectacles.  He  is  the 
apostle  of  anti-alcoholism  in  the  Russian  Church,  and 
a  man  of  power  as  orator  and  leader.  Behind  him  is 
the  Alexander  Nevsky  Temperance  Society  with  local 
groups  running  up  to  3,000  in  number.  It  was  through 
their  preliminary  agitation,  he  tells  me,  that  the  way 
was  prepared  for  vodka  Prohibition.  Father  Mirtov 
receives  letters  every  day  from  mothers  begging  that 
Prohibition  continue.  They  tell  him  in  many  cases 
that  their  boys,  who  had  disappeared  as  vagabonds, 
have  come  home  again.  In  other  instances  sons  driven 
away  by  the  violence  of  drunken  fathers  return 
when  they  learn  that  their  father  is  now  sober.  "Hos- 
pitals formerly  overcrowded  with  sick  drunkards,  have 
so  few  of  them  now  that  there  is  provision  for 
wounded  soldiers  in  addition  to  the  usual  sick.  In  the 
villages  there  is  a  mighty  cry  for  literature  where  once 
lucre  was  little  or  no  reading.  The  people  who  for- 
merly lay  around  drunk  on  holidays  now  ask  for  lec- 
tures on  these  church  days."  In  the  old  horrible  days 
Father  Mirtov  used  to  provide  free  temperance  din- 
ners to  the  alcohol  outcasts  of  Pebrograd.  A  hundred 
would  gather  daily  on  week  days  and  at  times  on 
Sundays,  the  number  would  go  as  high  as  two  thou- 
sand. Now  nobody  turns  up.D  A  similar  story  comes 
from  the  Dom  Evangelia,  the  great  mission  church  of 
the  Russian  Baptists  in  the  Vassiliostrov  quarter  of 
Petrograd.  The  long  Lenten  fast  terminates  in  Rus- 
sia with  a  feast  on  Easter  morning.  First  .here  is  a 
service  "when  it  is  yet  dark."  After  this  remir.iscenre 

D  In  passing  into  the  parish  house  connected  with  the  church  one 
could  see  a  long  line  of  hundreds  of  women,  the  wives  01  soldiers  at  me 
front,  who  were  waiting  for  their  government  allowances.  This  is  dealt 
out  to  them,  after  due  inquiries,  by  a  group  of  volunteer  clerks — women 
students  from  the  university.  The  recipients  are  sober,  decent  women 
thanks,  in  many  cases,  to  Prohibition.  One  could  not  but  contrast  them 
with  the  slatternly  daughters  of  Anglicanism  boozing  away  their  war 
relief  in  the  gin  palaces  of  London. 

16 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

of  the  women  at  the  tomb  the  Orthodox  go  to  their 
homes  to  tables  loaded  with  food  and  Russian  deli- 
cacies. In  this  mission  church  it  has  been  the  custom 
for  several  years  back  to  hold  the  early  morning  serv- 
ice and  afterwards  to  spread  a  table  for  the  tramps 
and  drunkards  of  the  quarters.  In  1913  and  1914  the 
large  hall,  seating  700  or  more,  was  crowded.  In  1915 
there  was  no  one  present. 

The  beautiful  suburban  woods  of  Lisnoi,  just  out 
of  Petrograd,  were  formerly  invaded  on  Sundays  and 
Saintdays  by  armies  of  roughs  and  drinkers  who  would 
carry  huge  bottles  containing  a  quarter  of  a  vedro 
and  in  addition  would  stuff  their  pockets  with  smaller 
bottles.  Many  would  come  alone  with  the  purpose  of 
getting  drunk  and  lying  in  delicious  coma  under  the 
trees.  Others  preferred  to  fight  like  a  whole  pack 
of  Ivan  the  Terribles.  On  such  days  it  was  very  un- 
safe for  women  and  children  to  go  into  the  woods. 
But  this  is  now  all  changed.  The  women  and  chil- 
dren at  last  have  a  place  in  the  sun — and  in  the  shades 
— of  Lisnoi. 

It  is  Circe's  miracle  reversed — swine  made  men ! 

Of  illustrations  there  are  no  end.  Here  is  one 
from  Mile.  K.,  who  describes  to  me  the  pre-Prohibi- 
tion  condition  in  the  village  near  her  estate,  140  versts 
from  Petrograd.  There  were  16  vodka  shops  in  the 
district.  A  single  one  took  in  20,000  rubles  yearly. 
Holy  days  were  great  days  for  drunkenness  and  fol- 
lowing the  drinking  came  the  fighting.  There  are  12 
great  feasts  of  the  church  in  the  year.  For  years  back 
each  of  these  has  been  marked  with  a  murder.  The 
villagers  would,  on  these  church  days,  engage  in 
pitched  battles  with  clubs  and  knives.E  And  the  vic- 

E  Mr.  A.  of  Petrpgrad  told  me  of  a  fishing  trip  to  which  he  was 
invited  by  a  landed  proprietor  before  the  war  broke  out.  Fifty  peasants 
were  also  asked  along  to  help  in  the  handling  of  the  seines.  The  host 
brought  several  vedros  of  vodka  with  him  and  the  day  ended  in  a  free 
fight  between  the  groups  from  rival  villages. 

17 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

tory  of  the  one  party  would  leave  a  rankling  feud  to 
be  fought  over  again  on  subsequent  saint  days.  It 
was  a  Scythian  paganism  with  a  veneer  of  alcoho-cler- 
ical  Christianity.  One  finds  like  types  of  alcoho- 
clerical  phenomena  in  Catania,  in  Italy,  in  the  annual 
excursion  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Alfio  with  the  "return 
procession  of  the  drunkards"  and  its  accompanying 
knife-play. 

But  these  multitudinous  knife  dramas  have  been 
ended  in  Russia  by  a  pen  stroke. 

My  informant  tells  me  of  peasants  who,  in  the 
pre-Prohibition  days,  would  start  out  to  market  with 
horse  and  a  team  loaded  with  produce  and  return  with 
neither  horse  nor  cart  and  with  pockets  void  of  any  re- 
turn for  the  hard-earned  produce.  Now  they  are 
prospering.  Moujiks,  who  never  possessed  purses  be- 
fore, now  carry  them  with  pride  and  have  money  in 
them. 

A  journalist  reporting  on  Prohibition  in  the 
Novoe  Vremya  (August  28-September  10,  1915),  cross- 
questions  certain  "haulers-on-land"  in  a  teashop. 
These  are  sinewy,  sunburnt  fellows  covered  with  the 
dust  from  the  lime  and  chalk  which  they  team  from 
the  Yeletz  deposits.  When  their  interrogator  sug- 
gested that  they  might  be  longing  for  vodka  they  an- 
swered emphatically:  "No!  It  is  better  without  it. 
We  should  have  had  Prohibition  before.  Had  there 
been  no  vodka  from  the  time  of  the  Liberation  (of 
the  serfs)  we  should  have  lived  like  lords  long  ago. 
It  is  only  now  that  we  understand  that.  Only  now 
are  we  beginning  to  get  a  little  sunshine  in  life."  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  peasants  in  Monopoly  days  bitterly 
cursed  vodka  while  -drinking  it.  Mme.  Y.  described 
to  me  a  visit  to  a  night  asylum  of  the  type  which 
Gorki  has  pictured.  She  spoke  to  the  men  about  re- 
ligious things.  This,  however,  only  elicited  the  bit- 

18 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

terest  recrimination's  against  a  'government  which 
could  make  money  out  of  the  extreme  misery  of  the 
drinkers.  The  vehemence  and  almost  demoniac  bitter- 
ness of  this  victim  of  the  Monopoly  was  so  intense 
as  to  frighten  her.  A  report  of  the  Statistical  Bureau 
of  the  Government  of  Poltova  states  that  former 
drunkards  are  the  greatest  friends  of  the  new  order. 
It  was  hard  at  first  for  them,  but  now  they  live  a  new 
life.  Some  reports  speak  of  their  new  "mania  for 
work."  Those  who  tried  denatured  spirits  soon  gave 
it  up  as  too  repulsive.  One  correspondent  marks  that 
there  is  now  no  more  strife  but  peace  everywhere  as 
"among  the  early  Christians."3  Peasant  correspond- 
ence in  the  Russkia  Viedomosti  is  full  of  quaint  obser- 
vations on  the  great  change.  "The  war  has  taken 
much  from  the  village  but  has  replaced  it  by  some- 
thing new  and  beautiful ;  we  see  each  other  always  so- 
ber." .  .  .  "There  were  some  tears  when  our  boys 
were  going  out  (to  the  war)  but  they  were  different 
from  those  which  our  wives  and  children  used  to  shed 
when  we  came  home  drunk.  The  new  tears  are  beau- 
tiful." .  .  "The  spiritual  uplift  is  simply  incredible," 
adds  a  teacher.* 

III. 

IN  the  machinery  for  mass  alcoholization  the  pawn- 
shop is  an  important  factor  everywhere      Reports 
from  Moscow  assert  that  "the  Lombards" — the 
mediaeval  title  for  the  pawnbroker  still  survives 
in  Russia — have  seen   their   business  decline  by  one- 
half.      In    both    Petrograd    and    Moscow    pawnshops 
there  has  been  a  general    discharge    of  clerks  corre- 
sponding to  the  increase  of  the  clerical  staff  in  the  sav- 

3  How    Vodka    Prohibition    Has    Influenced    the    Life    of    the    Popula- 
tion.   Poltova,    1915.      Quoted    in    the    Int.    Monats,    z.    Erforsch.    d.    Alk. 
p.    188.    1915. 

4  Quoted   by    Mme.   Jarintzoff,    Contemp.    Review,    September,    1915. 

19 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

ings  banks.  But  with  a  decrease  in  loans  has  gone 
along  an  increase  in  the  sale  of  pledged  articles,  es- 
pecially of  furniture.  The  home,  the  social  unit,  is 
being  rehabilitated.  This  decrease  in  loans  has  been 
chiefly  in  small  loans — between  one  and  four  rubles — 
indicating  how  relief  is  coming  to  the  desperately  poor 
and  to  the  most  hopeless  victims  of  alcohol.  "Mos- 
cow usurers  have,  as  a  class,  disappeared,"  writes 
Vesinik  Tresvosti  (March,  1915).  Like  reports  are  sent 
in  from  the  country.  In  the  old  days  (so  I  am  in- 
formed by  a  close  observer  in  Central  Russia)  there 
was  always,  at  the  country  banks,  an  excess  in  appli- 
cation for  loans  and  a  minus  in  deposits.  Now  the 
deposits  outnumber  the  loan  applications.  Women 
formerly  ran  constantly  to  the  banks  to  negotiate 
small  loans  during  the  absence  of  husbands  or  to 
complete  the  purchase  of  a  horse  or  for  this  or 
that  other  cause.  This  habit  is  disappearing.  The 
Birzhevya  Viedomosti  (July  10,  1915)  states  that 
while,  in  late  years,  some  19,000  poor  persons  have 
been  helped  annually  by  the  city  of  Petrograd,  the 
number  now  is  but  five  or  six  daily  (perhaps  2,000  a 
year).  Statistics  of  this  sort  must,  for  the  present,  be 
taken  with  reserve.  But  even  when  ruthlessly  dis- 
counted they  contain  an  impressive  balance — so  great 
is  the  margin  of  difference  between  the  old  and  the 
new. 

Prohibition  is  making  itself  felt  in  an  enhanced 
economic  output.  "It  is  as  if  Russia  had  added  mil- 
lions of  laborers  to  her  labor  reserve  without  even 
increasing  the  expense  of  maintaining  them,"  said  Mr. 
Lloyd-George  in  the  House  of  Commons,  February 
I5th.  The  Russian  Minister  of  Finance  is  quoted  as 
saying:  "In  the  coal  regions  we  have  sent  30  per  cent 
of  the  male  inhabitants  to  the  war  and  yet  the  output 
of  work  is  greater  by  30  per  cent,  because  everyone 

20 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

is  sober."  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the 
coal  miners  of  the  Don  have  been  an  especially  alco- 
holized group.  Factory  inspectors  reporting  on  a 
marked  decline  in  fines  (also  about  30  per  cent)  in  fac- 
tories and  other  industrial  enterprises,  remark  es- 
pecially on  the  striking  fall  in  the  number  of  fines  im- 
posed on  Don  miners.  The  English  foremen  of  the 
Thornton  Mills,  Schliisselburg,  are  enthusiastic  over 
the  men's  new  promptness  and  efficiency.  Rope- 
makers  are  declaring  that  it  would  simply  have  been 
impossible  in  the  pre-prohibition  period  to  turn  out 
the  product  they  are  now  delivering  to  the  army.  Re- 
ports of  this  character  are  general.  One  can  imagine 
how  favorably  they  will  react  later,  on  the  movement 
of  capital  to  Russia.  A  special  study  made  in  the 
Moscow  industrial  area  shows  results  from  prohibi- 
tion very  substantial,  though  falling  below  the  per- 
centages reported  by  M.  Bark.  Mr.  Henry  Dunster 
Baker,  the  commercial  attache  of  the  American  Lega- 
tion, is,  as  his  name  indicates,  a  descendent  of  the 
Puritan  first  president  of  Harvard,  but  he  does  not 
fancy  prohibition  and  "would  vote  against  it  in  the 
United  States."  Yet  he  is  satisfied  that  it  has  inten- 
sified industrial  efficiency  and  enormously  increased 
popular  savings.  He  also  called  my  attention  to  the 
considerable  increase  in  the  amount  of  land  which  has 
been  put  into  cultivation  since  prohibition.  This  is 
accounted  for  by  the  heightened  energy  of  the  peas- 
antry and  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  the  most  ef- 
fective workers  on  the  land  have  been  drafted  irf~ 
the  army  literally  by  millions.  M.  Faressov  gives  in 
the  Novoe  Vremya  illustrations  from  the  Bolkhov  dis- 
trict. "Formerly  the  peasant  here  would  lease  one 
dessiatin  of  land.  Now  with  the  money  saved  from 
vodka  he  is  able  to  hire  three  or  four."5  The  em- 

5  Xovoe    Vremya.    Aug.    28-Sept.    10.    1915. 

21 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

ployer  is  not  the  only  one  who  profits  from  increased 
efficiency.  The  price  of  labor  has  gone  up  in  a  very 
remarkable  manner.  The  war  has  played  an  import- 
ant part  in  this  rise,  but  so  has  prohibition  also.  The 
laborer  saves  his  capital  and  is  able  to  bargain  more 
advantageously  with  his  employer.  In  the  vodka  era 
he  had  to  work  on  any  terms  offered  him.F 

To  a  heightened  earning  power  corresponds  nat- 
urally a  heightened  spending  power.  Legitimate  in- 
dustries— clothing  shops,  grocery  stores,  meat  mar- 
kets, experience  unlocked  for  sales.  In  Petrograd,  in 
a  street  car,  when  a  passenger  expressed  his  satisfac- 
tion with  the  new  conditions,  a  man  stood  up  and 
boasted  that  he  had  now  whole  boots — he  who  never 
had  had  such,  even  in  coldest  weather.  Early  in  the 
winter  when  there  were  rumors  of  German  advance 
through  Finland  large  crews  of  men  were  hired  to 
throw  up  earthworks  near  the  capital.  One  contin- 
gent after  working  long  enough  to  accumulate  a  con- 
siderable sum  decided  to  visit  Petrograd  in  a  body 

F  In  the  Int.  Monats  z.  Erforschung  d.  Alkoholismus,  Sept.,  1915. 
is  a  study  of  a  Russian  document  entitled  "The  Sobering  of  the  Workman : 
Statistical  Investigation  of  the  Influence  of  Alcohol  Prohibition  Upon 
Work:  Made  Under  the  Leadership  of  Ph.  J.  Kubatzky,  Moscow,  1915." 
This  inquiry  was  undertaken  at  the  instance  of  the  industrials  of  the 
Moscow  Government,  embracing  ten  Russian  administrative  circuits.  It 
covered  the  months  of  August,  September  and  October.  1914.  The  statis- 
tics were  drawn  from  172  factories  employing  214.700  workmen.  Com- 
plete answers  were  obtained  concerning  189.250  workmen — 114,606  em- 
ployed in  cotton  spinning.  42.354  in  metal  industries.  13.469  in  wool  and 
5.307  in  food  industries.  The  investigation  studied,  first,  the  difference 
in  loss  of  time  before  and  after  Prohibition.  This  loss  is  ordinarily  due 
to  drunkenness,  sickness  or  to  family  troubles.  During  the  three  months 
of  1913  mentioned,  the  number  of  thousand  hours  lost  were  4,347,  or  23 
hours  per  workman:  in  1914.  3001.8,  or  16.5  hours  per  workman.  This 
was  a  decrease  of  31  per  cent  in  1914.  When  the  male  operatives  alone 
are  considered  the  decrease  is  found  to  be  36.8  per  cent  (2,455,600  hours 
in  1913  and  1,308.000  in  1914).  The  decrease  among  women  is  naturally 
far  less  (1.661.300  to  1.526.800). 

The  investigator  reckons  that  the  increase  of  productivity  because  of 
Prohibition  is.  for  the  male  workman,  about  9  per  cent.  The  report 
states  that  in  the  textile  industry  of  Russia,  thanks  to  improvements  in 
technique — productivity  increased  between  1900  and  1910  by  5.5  per  cent, 
or  .55  per  cent  yearly.  "What  better  technique  has  been  able  to  attain 
with  infinite  exertion  alcohol  Prohibition  has  brought  about  almost  auto- 
matically." 

In  1913  27  per  cent  of  all  male  absence  from  work  was  on  days  after 
Sundays  and  holidays:  18.6  per  cent  female.  The  difference  is  obviously 

22 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

to  celebrate  in  the  old  way.  But  vodka  was  not  to 
be  procured  for  love  or  money.  Every  man  of  them, 
therefore,  invested  in  a  new  suit  of  clothes.  "Peas- 
ants who  in  vodka  days  never  put  by  a  kopek  are 
buying  good  plows  and  drills  and  harvesting  machin- 
ery." "In  Tambov  the  zemstvo  shop  has  sold  out  its 
entire  stock."  "Village  stores  never  had  so  much 
trade."  The  Report  of  the  Statistical  Bureau  for  the 
Government  of  Poltova  writes :  "The  peasant  works 
more,  is  able  to  buy  more  live  stock  and  to  undertake 
repairs.  Some  state  that  they  have  been  able  to  buy 
a  wall  clock  or  a  sewing  machine.  Debts  are  being 
paid  rapidly."  The  Swedish  Consul  in  Petrograd,  Mr. 
K.  E.  Widerstrom,  in  reporting  to  his  government  the 

due  to  drink.  In  1914  this  difference  had  practically  disappeared  (19  per 
cent  male  and  18  per  cent  female).  In  the  Prohibition  period  the  men 
worked  as  much  on  days  after  holidays  as  on  other  days. 

The  statistics  of  lost  time  after  pay  day  tells  the  same  story: 

Aug.-Oct.,  1913  Aug.-Oct.,  1914 

Number   of  workmen   answering 63,314  62,968 

Number  of  days  after  wage  payments 234  195 

Loss  of  hours  of  work  on  days  after  payment 

of    wages    133,200  51,400 

There  has  been  a  slight  increase  in  accidents  recorded,  which  is  at 
first  perplexing.  The  workmen  explain  it  by  the  fact  that  the  war  has 
called  from  the  factories  thousands  of  experienced  and  reliable  workers 
who  have  been  replaced  by  inexperienced,  raw  hands.  To  the  Prohibition 
law  is  due  the  fact  that  the  number  of  accidents  has  not  been  far  greater. 

Follows  a  special  investigation  concerning  productivity  and  Prohibi- 
tion. Here  it  is  found,  studying  Z.646  men  and  712  women  workers,  that 
the  total  productivity  has  increased  7.1  per  cent:  of  men  alone  8  per 
cent,  and  of  men  in  the  metal  industries  by  12.4  per  cent. 

The  third  part  of  the  Moscow  report  gives  expressions  of  opinions 
from  employers  concerning  the  economic  value  of  Prohibition.  The  judg- 
ment is  unanimous.  Prohibition  has  had  an  extraordinarily  favorable  ac- 
tion upon  productivity.  One  reports  as  follows : 

Number    of   persons    employed    619 

Loss   of  time   in   1913    19,061  hours 

Loss  of  time   in    1914    7,138  hours 

Decrease     11,922  hour* 

Loss    of   time    after    holidays,    1913 5,339  hour* 

Loss    of   time    after    holidays,    1913 , .     398  hours 

Decrease     4.940  hours 

Loss    of   time    after    paydays,    1913 5,335  hours 

Loss    of   time    after    holidays,    1914 278  hours 

Decrease 4,958  hours 

Loss  of  time   because   of  sickness,    1913 8,491  hours 

Loss   of   time   because   of   sickness,    1914 6,467  hours 

Decrease     2,024.  hours 

23 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

various  causes  which  have  led  to  an  increase  of  the 
price  of  wheat  in  Russia,  says:  "3.  Prohibition  has 
also  been  a  factor.  The  peasant  needs  no  money  for 
whisky  for  he  cannot  get  it.  He  therefore  prefers  to 
hold  his  grain  for  a  rise  in  price.  It  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that,  thanks  to  prohibition,  the  people  eat  more 
bread.  Money  formerly  spent  on  spirits  is  used  for 
food,  clothes  and  savings."66  In  the  Birshevya  Viedo- 
mosti,  September  9,  1915,  an  article  attributes  the 
shortage  of  milk  in  Petrograd  to  increased  demand 
caused  by  the  presence  of  great  numbers  of  Polish 
fugitives  and  wounded  soldiers  in  the  city,  and  thirdly, 
"to  the  greater  consumption  of  milk  since  the  prohi- 
bition of  vodka."  A  "substitute"  drink  which  anti- 
prohibition  press  agents  have  not  cared  to  report! 
It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  while  more  food  is  being- 

6  Kommersiella   Meddelanden,    No.    13,    1915;    p.    437. 

G  Mr.  Widerstrom  continues :  "The  Prohibition  of  spirits,  which 
has  been  in  operation  since  tht  outbreak  of  the  war.  has  had  an  unspeak- 
ably great  influence  on  the  growth  of  Russia's  home  industries.  .  .  .  The 
horrors  of  war  will  be  forgotten  after  a  generation,  but  the  blessings  of 
Prohibition  will  endure  forever.  .  .  .  The  nation  and  the  government 
have  learned  that  it  is  possible  to  live  without  spirits.  They  have,  to 
their  astonishment,  seen  the  humbler  classes'  purchasing  power, 
instead  of  greatly  decreasing  as  was  generally  expected,  actually  increase 
in  certain  directions  after  the  war's  outbreak.  .  .  .  The  situation  is  especi- 
ally striking  in  the  harbor  and  at  loading  points.  The  ragged  figures  are 
almost  all  gone  and  instead  of  asking  alms  for  whisky  and  night  lodgings 
these  formerly  degraded  persons  are  contributing  to  collections  for  the 
relief  of  war  victims.  In  many  places  where  no  one  could  show  himself 
after  dark  without  risking  life  there  is  now  no  danger,  and  the  number  of 
crimes  has  fallen  enormously.  Every  effort  of  the  brewers  and  dealers 
in  wine  and  beer  to  have  the  sale  of  wine  and  beer  allowed,  is  met  with 
the  strongest  opposition  from  many  city  governments,  from  the  clergy,  and 
from  the  industrials.  These  last  look  with  apprehension  to  the  time  when 
vodka  shall  be  allowed  sale  again.  Those  who  complain  of  Prohibition 
are  the  financially  hit — brewers,  distillers  and  sellers.  Those  who  thank 
God  and  the  Tsar  are  the  millions  of  women  and  children  in  this  great 
land."  The  consul  further  reports  on  the  magnificent  system  of  elevators 
which  is  being  put  into  operation  to  save  the  peasantry  from  speculators 
and  usurers.  He  describes  this  as  the  most  important  blessing  which  has 
come  to  the  Russian  people  after  emancipation  in  1861  and  Prohibition 
in  1914.— Kommersielle  Meddelanden,  July  15.  1915.  pp.  435-438. 

I  had  at  my  country  place  Stegalovka.  a  perfect  blacksmith,  famous 
for  his  work:  but  no  peasant  wanting  to  have  his  horse  shod  was  admitted 
unless  he  brought  along  a  bottle  of  vodka.  While  formerly,  in.  summer 
and  winter,  Simon  the  Dog.  as  he  was  called,  wore  nothing  but  rags,  now 
he  is  well  clad  ,  and  when  people  fail  to  recognize  him  in  his  new  gar- 
ments he  smilingly  cries  out:  "It  is  I.  indeed,  Simon  the  Dog,  and  I 
praise  the  Lord."  Novoe  Vremja.  Aug.  28-Sept.  10.  Multiply  this  by  the 
million  and  calculate  the  effect  on  the  clothing  trade ! 

24 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

consumed  generally,  there  is  a  decline  in  the  con- 
sumption of  food  in  prisons,  due  naturally  to  a  fall 
in  the  number  of  prisoners.  The  Petrograd  district 
courts  up  to  July  i,  1914,  sentenced  9,717  persons  to 
jail  for  all  crimes;  during  the  second  half  of  1914 
(chiefly  prohibition  months)  the  number  fell  to  3,817- 
A  contractor  who  supplied  one  prison  in  Petrograd 
with  meat  found  his  sales  cut  down  by  about  12  poods 
(435  Ibs.)  daily. 

The  Swedish  professor,  Dr.  Hjalmar  Sjogren, 
who  stands  in  close  relation  to  the  Nobel  Brothers, 
great  dynamite  and  petroleum  industrials  of  Petro- 
grad and  Baku,  wrote  as  early  as  the  fall  of  1914,  after 
a  two  months'  visit  to  Russia : 

"One  knows  the  Russians  no  longer  since  the 
vodka  traffic  has  closed  down.  The  Russian  workman 
and  peasant  are  now  a  wholly  different  type  from  that 
which  one  was  accustomed  to  see  before.  The  peo- 
ple hitherto  have  carried  an  unmistakable  stamp  of 
poverty.  Now  the  working  people  are  well-clothed 
and  well-fed.  During  the  four  months  prohibition  has 
existed  they  have  succeeded  in  repairing  both  the  inner 
and  the  cuter  man. 

"Formerly  workmen  seldom  came  to  work  on 
Mondays.  Now  they  are  in  their  places  daily.  Then 
they  went  with  their  wages  Saturday  evening  to  the 
saloon.  Now  they  buy  food  and  clothing.  The  re- 
sult has  been  a  magnificent  and  wholly  unexpected 
boom  both  in  the  clothing  and  food-stuff  industries. 
This  in  spite  of  the  war.  Formerly  a  Russian  worker 
could  not  buy  eggs  and  butter,  wear  good  clothes  on 
Sundays,  possess  good  shoes  and  rubbers.  Now  he 
is  able  to  procure  them  all.  This  is  a  peculiarly  grati- 
fying result  of  the  severe  prohibitory  decrees.  This 
strikes  one  immediately.  As  a  result,  sympathy  for 
the  new  order  grows  day  by  day.  The  protests  of 

25 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 


brewers  and  distillers  are  remarkably  weak  since  they 
know  their  petitions,  under  present  conditions,  will  be 
without  effect.  Public  opinion  among  the  masses,  in 
the  city  governments,  in  the  country  zemstvos,  is  so 
universally  favorable  to  the  new  order  that  it  would 
be  difficult,  indeed,  to  oppose  it.  The  blessings  which 
abstinence  brings  with  it  are  too  obvious.  Prohibi- 
tion has  revolutionized  Russia  and  no  one  who  has 
not  seen  it  can  conceive  how  advantageously  it 
works."7 

The  wealth  of  the  nation  instead  of  running  off 
into  the  sewers  began  now  to  be  conserved.  Enor- 
mous increases  in  popular  savings  were  directly  ob- 
servable. The  deposits  in  the  state  savings  banks  for 
the  first  nine  months  of  prohibition  are  displayed  in 
the  following  table  from  the  Times  Russian  Supple- 
ment, June  28,  1915 : 

1914 
Rubles 
August -|-io,iod,ooo 


September -  -25,800,000 

October  -  -21,700,000 

November  -  -24,800,000 

December -  -35,200,000 

1915 

January -  -59,800,000 

February -  -43,900,000 

March  -  -45,900,000 

April  -  -49,300,000 

It  will  be  seen  that  while  more  money  was  with- 
drawn than  deposited  in  the  first  four  months  of  1914 
the  increase  in  deposits  for  the  corresponding  period 
of  1915  was  198,900,000  rubles.  The  entire  increase 
in  deposits  in  the  last  vodka  year,  1913,  was  38,600,000 
rubles,  or  an  average  of  9,600,000  per  quarter.  The 

7  Dagens    Nyheter.    Dec.    8,    1914. 

26 


1913 
Rubles 
-700,000 

-1-1,100,000 

-1-1,500,000 
-1-5,100,000 
-1-700,000 

1914 

-1-1.900,000 
-800,000 
-2,300,000 
-200,000 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

average  increase  of  1915  as  compared  with  that  of  1913 
is,  therefore,  more  than  20  fold.  The  treasures  of  the 
Monasteries  compared  with  those  which  prohibition 
has  brought,  are  but  a  bagatelle.  There  has  also  been  a 
marked  growth  in  the  monetary  resources  of  institu- 
tions of  small  popular  credit.  The  insurance  opera- 
tions of  the  state  savings  banks  also  report  expan- 
sion.11 

The  Monopoly  brought  in  such  huge  incomes  to 
the  state  that  it  was  commonly  said  its  abolition  by 
the  government  would  be  like  the  chopping  off  of  one's 
own  legs.  Nothing  so  serious,  however,  has  occurred. 
"The  budget  has  been  much  less  affected,"  said  M. 
Bark  in  the  above  quoted  interview  in  the  Petit  Par- 
isien,  "than  one  would  have  believed.  The  produc- 
tivity of  labor  has  increased  on  an  average  50  per  cent 
and  all  the  fiscal  resources  which  come  from  direct  or 
indirect  taxes  have  greatly  developed.  The  tax  on 

H  Mr.  Corse,  the  Manager  of  the  N.  Y.  Life  Insurance  Co  in  Petro- 
grad,  writes  me:  "In  the  first  seven  months  of  1915  the  deposits  in  the 
state  savings  banks  amounted  to  Rr.  360,800,000  more  than  for  the  cor- 
responding seven  months  of  1914.  Further,  during  these  seven  months  of 
1915  over  Rs.  99.000,000  of  state  papers  were  deposited  with  the  state 
savings  banks  in  excess  of  what  was  deposited  for  the  same  period  of  the 
preceding  year,  making  the  total  effective  deposits  in  the  savings  banks 
for  the  first  seven  months  of  1915  Rr.  460.000.000  in  excess  of  the  cor- 
responding seven  months  of  the  previous  year.  There  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  deposits  in  the  savings  banks  would  have  shown  still  more 
favorable  results  had  the  governments  on  the  western  frontier  of  Russia 
been  normally  functioning.  Military  operations  in  large  sections  of  Poland 
and  the  Baltic  province  have  naturally  made  savings  impossible  and  para- 
lyzed the  domestic  and  economic  life  of  this  territory. 

Mr.  Sherwell  describes  these  increases  in  savings  as  "considerable." 
More  impartial  observers  would  use  a  far  stronger  term.  It  is  interesting 
to  observe  the  little  rills  which  make  up  this  rising  flood  of  wealth.  Mr. 
Clare,  pastor  of  the  British-American  Church  in  Petrograd,  illustrates  from 
the  case  of  his  housemaid.  Russian  girls  of  this  class  are  very  loyal  to 
their  parents  and  are  wont  to  carry  their  sayings  with  them  when  they  go 
to  the  country  from  Petrograd  on  home  visits.  This  year  this  particular 
girl  brought  the  money  as  usual  to  the  old  folks  but  found  they  did  not 
need  it.  She  therefore  deposited  it  in  a  savings  bank  on  her  return  to 
Petrograd.  I  was  told  that  this  is  no  isolated  occurrence. 

The  increase  in  savings  has  obliged  the  government  to  open  new  dis- 
trict savings  banks  in  Petrograd.  Some  of  the  old  vodka  shops  have  been 
utilized  in  this  fashion.  Others  have  become  collecting  centers  for  Red 
Cross  and  relief  work :  at  others  stamps  are  sold :  at  others  industrial 
alcohol.  Some,  their  walls  pitted  with  innumerable  dints  where  the  wax 
seals  of  the  vodka  bottles  were  broken,  are  closed  altogether.  The  cur- 
tains are  drawn.  One  thinks  of  an  evil,  pock-marked  face  when  the  eyes 
are  shut  forever  in  death. 

27 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

sugar,  for  example,  has  brought  in  much  more  than 
in  preceding  years.  The  less  alcohol  the  more  sugar 
consumed  by  the  taxpayer."  "Before,  when  we  de- 
rived our  revenues  from  vodka,  it  was  as  though  we 
were  forever  drawing  out,  drawing  out" — he  made  a 
gesture  as  though  milking  a  cow — "the  vitality  of  the 
Russian  people.  Now  at  the  end  of  two  months  of 
temperance  we  seem  to  be  taking  merely  the  interest 
on  their  stored-up  strength  and  resourcefulness."8 
The  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Nijni  Novgorod  estimates 
that  the  savings  of  the  peasants  in  the  five  Prohibi- 
tion months  of  1914  would  enable  them  to  pay  the 
usual  taxes  twice  over.9  'The  land  tax,"  reports  a 
judge  in  the  Luga  district,  "formerly  always  in  ar- 
rears, is  now  promptly  paid."  Prof.  Westergaard,  the 
Danish  political  economist,  has  said  somewhere  of  na- 
tional Prohibition  that  "its  introduction  would  occa- 
sion no  greater  economic  disturbance  than  when  one 
throws  a  large  stone  into  a  strong  current.  The  next 
moment  the  stream  flows  over  it  as  if  it  had  lain  there 
for  centuries."  How  perfectly  the  figure  conforms  to 
fact  in  Russia !  And  one  must  further  always  remem- 
ber how  inauspicious  the  time  for  broaching  so  radical 
a  reform  seemed  to  be.  Yet  so  successful  has  it  proved 
even  in  war  time  that  one  can  almost  compare  it  with 
the  ether  of  the  operating  table. 

Wealth  has  been  conserved  in  unexpected  ways. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  by-products  of  Prohibi- 
tion has  been  the  diminution  in  disastrous  fires.  In 
the  peasant  religion  of  Russia  there  is  much  animism. 
The  moujiks  know  of  Vodiavoi,  or  water  spirits,  who 
haunt  marshes  and  drag  men  into  the  depths,  of 
Domovoi  or  barnyard  spirits,  who  torment  animals,  of 
Polevoi,  who  strangle  peasants  in  the  fields  and  annoy 

8  Miss    Brush,    Saturday    Evening   Post,    14.    Interview   with    M.    Bark. 

9  Quoted    in    L' Abstinence,    March    13,    1915. 

28 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

drunkards,  of  the  spirits  of  pestilence  and  many  more. 
One  can  safely  predict  that  the  disappearance  of  vodka 
will  have  an  effect  on  these  sprites  comparable  .to  the 
morning  note  of  chanticleer.  One  of  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  all,  the  Ovcnnik,  or  barn  spirit,  is  the  author 
of  fire  in  hamlet  and  farmhouse.  On  winter  days  the 
peasants  are  wont  to  burn  straw  and  wood  in  the 
open  air  to  appease  his  malice.  But  since  August, 
1914,  he  has  shown  a  marvelously  restrained  temper. 
In  Petrograd  itself  the  fire  department  has  had  rela- 
tively little  to  do.  In  the  country  the  flame  cry  of  the 
"red-rooster"  is  heard  night-times  with  far  less  fre- 
quency. The  Russian  insurance  publication  Strahovje 
Delo  reported  comparative  statistics  for  August  and 
September  in  the  vodka  and  Prohibition  years,  1913 
and  1914,  respectively.10  In  the  government  of  Vo- 
ronesch  the  number  of  fires  were  542  and  152,  respec- 
tively, and  the  payments  on  policies,  106,077  and  1 5>953 
rubles.  In  the  government  of  Jekatcrinoslav  310  and 
147  fires  and  28,893  and  13,287  rubles.  In  Minsk  the 
number  of  fires  fell  from  169  to  77.  In  Orlov  from 
464  to  215,  in  the  government  of  Moscow  from  490 
to  235.  Up  to  the  Prohibition  months  the  number  of 
fires  in  these  governments  had  for  some  years  been 
in  constant  ascendence.  One  company  doing  busi- 
ness in  these  five  provinces  reported  in  1914  a  surplus 
of  400,000  rubles  and  is  now  proposing  to  lower  its 
insurance  rates.  In  a  document  from  Poltava  these 
statistics  are  given.  Number  of  fires  in  August-Sep- 
tember, 1914,  330  as  against  437,  in  the  corresponding 
period  of  1913 ;  of  houses  burned  down,  402  as  against 
707,  of  money  loss  44,216  rubles  as  against  64,401  in 
the  earlier  year.  Such  figures  give  new  meaning  to 
the  saying  that  drink  is  the  worst  enemy  of  the  home. 
One  finds  the  tendency  general.  Thus  in  Rjazan 

10  Quoted    in    Fram,    Feb.    12.    1915. 

29 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

there  were  873  fires  in  August,  1913;  in  the  Prohibi- 
tion August  of  1914,  462.  In  the  government  of  Tam- 
bov the  Septembers  of  1913  and  1914  registered  480 
and  221  fires,  respectively.  The  chairman  of  the  most 
important  committee  of  the  Imperial  Duma  quoted  to 
Prof.  Simpson,  of  Edinburg,  statistics  of  the  zemsti'o* 
to  the  effect  that  in  all  the  governments  of  Russia 
there  was,  in  the  first  three  months  of  Prohibition,  a 
diminution  of  47  per  cent  in  the  number  of  fires  and 
of  56  per  cent  in  amount  of  damage  done. 

Compared  with  the  banning  of  the  vodka  the 
Russian  function  of  the  blessing  of  the  Neva  is  a 
trivial  thing,  indeed.  One  hears  of  social  betterments 
of  the  most  varied  types.  In  the  Ardatov  district 
near  Moscow,  for  example,  an  increase  in  the  number 
of  marriages  is  reported.1  Formerly  the  consumption 
of  much  vodka  was  indispensable  on  such  occasions. 
This  brought  the  expense  of  the  ordinary  marriage 
up  to  200  rubles;  of  the  "better"  marriages  to  300. 
Now  a  good  marriage  can  be  celebrated  for  100  rubles. 
In  the  government  of  Minsk,  before  Prohibition,  the 
potatoes  were  made  into  vodka.  Since  Prohibition 
starch  and  potato  meal  factories  have  come  into  oper- 
ation and  there  is  a  large  export  of  potatoes  to  other 
provinces.  "Formerly  in  the  country  districts," 
writes  an  agronomist  employed  by  a  semstvo  near 
Moscow  to  give  agricultural  instruction  to  the  peas- 
antry, "it  was  always  unpleasant  to  hold  talks  because 
of  drunken  interruptions.  Now  there  is  quiet  and  or- 
der and  close  attention  at  the  meetings."  Prof.  Simp- 

I  Prostitution  is  also  said  to  have  fallen  off  markedly.  This  is  a 
natural  movement  in  view  of  the  intimate  co-operation  between  lust  and 
alcohol.  Feminine  degradation  helps  sell  beer,  and  beer  finds  a  market 
for  feminine  degradation.  In  Petrograd  women  of  this  class  have  found 
their  trade  diminish  and  have  had  to  go  to  honest  work.  Those  who 
combined  it  with  running  a  wine  shop  have  had  to  quit  since  prostitution 
alone  has  not  paid  financially.  The  Birzhevya  Viedomosti  reports  a  Nijni 
Novgorod  physician  as  having  had  250  cases  of  prostitute  girls  needing 
medical  assistance  during  the  Fair  period  of  1915  as  against  600  in  1914. 
Similar  reports  come  from  Warsaw  and  elsewhere. 

30 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

son's  Duma  informant  tells  a  similar  story.  "Latterly 
the  old  men  did  not  come  to  the  village  assemblies 
because  they  were  continually  subjected  to  insult  by 
the  younger  men  when  half-drunken.  Now  they  lis- 
ten to  the  older  men  so  that  the  latter  say,  'We  have 
again  become  fathers  for  the  young  men  respect  us/  ': 
In  Tambov  agricultural  societies  meet  more  often 
and  pay  their  secretaries  better.  There  are  fewer 
bad  debts.  "Formerly  when  I  shoed  a  horse  for  50 
kopeks,"  said  a  blacksmith,  "the  owner  would  ask, 
'Shall  we  have  a  bottle  over  it?'  The  bottle  would  be 
bought  with  the  shoeing  money  and  the  price  of  the 
work  charged.  In  this  way  debts  accumulated.  But  it 
is  never  so  now."  Employees  do  not  run  after  ad- 
vances as  formerly.  Mr.  Valonskiy,  the  owner  of 
leather  factories  at  Tchernaya  Sloboda  speaks  of  one 
of  his  mechanics  who  received  80  rubles  a  month  and 
free  lodging,  but  who  formerly  always  insisted  on 
advanced  pay.  Now  he  lets  his  wages  accumulate 
for  two  or  three  months  before  asking  for  it.  One 
curious  result  of  Prohibition  has  been  the  great 
growth  in  membership  of  temperance  societies.  Thus 
the  accessions  to  the  Alexander  Nevski  Society  in 
Petrograd  ran  in  the  last  months  of  1913,  51,  31,  45, 
53*  50,  but  in  the  last  months  of  1914  with  such  fig- 
ures as  2,759,  3,046,  2,203.  The  immense  significance 
of  the  alcohol  question  seems  to  have  dawned  on  the 
popular  consciousness  after  a  few  weeks  of  experience 
of  the  prohibitory  period. 

"In  the  country  one  gets  the  impression  that  the 
peasant  has  awakened  out  of  century-long  sleep  to  a 
new  life,"  writes  the  Petrograd  correspondent  of  Rit- 
zau's  Telegraph  Bureau.  "The  schools  are  overfilled. 
Even  grown-ups,  those  who  did  not  know  reading  and 
writing  before,  have  joined.  They  flock  in  such  nutn- 

31 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

bers  to  the  evening  readings  on  agriculture  and  en- 
gineering that  they  have  to  sit  on  the  floor."11  This 
renascence  of  self-respect  and  of  intelligence  is  de- 
scribed in  Politiken,  of  Copenhagen,  (April  4,  '15),  by 
a  Russian  correspondent,  M.  Lubinsky. 

"Before  the  war  broke  out  the  village  folkmotes 
passed  off  in  utmost  quiet.  All  the  peasants  took  part 
in  these  meetings,  but  the  rich  peasants  decided  every- 
thing and  elected  the  village  leader.  The  vote  of  the 
village  was  simply  bought  up  with  free  vodka.  It  was 
cast  for  the  man  who  was  able  to  supply  the  most 
drink.  But  what  a  change  now.  There  is  life  and 
go  in  the  discussions.  Votes  are  not  purchased  be- 
forehand. The  rich  peasantry  no  longer  dispose  over 
a  medium  by  which  they  can  buy  their  way  to  power. 
The  result  is  altogether  astonishing.  Most  of  the 
former  village  representatives  have  been  replaced 
by  people  from  the  moujiks'  own  body — temperate,  in- 
telligent persons,  who  understand  their  business. 
That  the  secret  ballot  was  introduced  the  same  time 
with  vodka  Prohibition  is  also  not  without  signifi- 
cance. 

"Another  remarkable  consequence  of  Prohibi- 
tion has  been  the  abolition  of  the  kolak  supremacy  in 
the  villages.  The  kolak  was  the  village  usurer  who 
loaned  poorer  peasants  money  for  their  seed  at  stag- 
gering rates.  When  the  borrower  had  gotten  in  his 
crop  in  the  fall  he  had  to  sell  the  last  straw  to  pay  his 
creditor.  He  stood  then  with  empty  hand  and  was 
obliged  to  borrow  again  of  the  kolak  and  to  work  on 
the  latter's  land.  The  word  kolak  signifies  "the 
clenched  fist."  The  kolak  was  the  bloodsucker,  the 
autocrat  of  the  villages.  To  make  sure  of  his  grip  he 
was  wont  to  set  up  little  drinkshops  where  the  peasant 
could  drink  on  credit. 

11   Russkia   Viedomosti.    quoted   in    Contemp.    Review,    Sept.    1915. 

32 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

"With  the  disapearance  of  the  vodka  has  come 
the  entrance  of  the  newspaper.  The  peasants  sub- 
scribe for  one  in  common — a  phenomenon,  hitherto 
practically  inconceivable  in  a  Russian  village." 

IV 

I  called  on  Prof.  Dr.  Bechterev,  of  the  Imperial 
University,  and  the  head  of  the  Psycho-Neuro- 
logical Institute  of  Petrograd.  Dr.  Bechterev 
is  the  leading  neurologist  of  Russia  and  the 
private  physician  of  the  Tsar.  He  will  be  remembered 
by  newspaper  readers  as  the  psychiatrical  expert  in 
the  famous  Beilis  case.  His  home  is  on  the  lovely, 
peaceful  Kamenoi-Ostrov,  with  its  memories  of  Rubin- 
stein and  the  "Twelve  Portraits"  (op.  10).  For  a 
whole  hour  he  sat  in  his  chair  recounting  to  me  the 
amazing  success  of  the  new  order.  "Hospital  wards 
for  'the  white  fever'  (the  Russian  name  for  delirium 
tremens)  are  practically  empty.  Suicides  have  fal- 
len to  a  minimum.  The  jails  are  void  of  hooligans. J 
The  Duma  is  nearly  unanimous  in  favor  of  permanent 
Prohibition.  If,  by  any  chance,  wine  is  allowed  re- 

J  For  some  time  past  the  hooligans  of  Petrograd  have  been  as  dis- 
quieting a  social  phenomenon  as  the  Apaches  of  Paris.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  they  were  at  first  organized  by  the  Black  Hundreds,  but  later 
got  out  of  the  control  of  these  political  reactionaries.  Regular  gangs, 
armed  with  Finnish  knives,  prowled  about,  making  it  dangerous,  especi- 
ally for  women,  to  travel  through  certain  quarters  and  back  streets.  The 
police  were  becoming  both  afraid  of  and  unable  to  handle  them  and  were 
often  stabbed  by  them.  The  struggle  for  their  suppression  promised  to 
be  both  long  and  formidable.  The  authorities  arrested  these  youthful 
ruffians  and  would  often  send  them  into  exile  into  the  villages.  Coelium 
non  animum  mutant.  They  not  only  displayed  the  same  activities  but 
taught  the  village  boys  their  evil  ways.  Then  came  Prohibition  and,  as 
early  as  the  26th  of  August.  Prof.  Bechterev  could  write  in  the  Birzhevvia 
Viedomosti  that  hooligans  had  disappeared  as  by  a  magic  wand.  It  will 
not  do  to  say  that  the  war  took  them  off  for  the  mobilization  at  that  early 
date  had  hardly  touched  this  class.  Roughs  in  the  villages  who  had  been 
wont  to  make  country  roads  unsafe  with  lead  set  in  thongs  of  leather  with 
which  they  slung-shotted  harmless  passers  seem  also  to  have  abandoned 
these  practices. 

"Crime  has  everywhere  diminished,"  said  M.  Bark  to  the  Paris  cor- 
respondent of  the  Daily  Telegraph.  (Feb.  4.  1915.)  "In  some  districts  it 
has  disappeared  altogether."  The  Ekaterinoslav  zemstvos  are  said  to 
have  considered  the  feasibility  of  suppressing  police  appropriations  in 

<33 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

entrance  it  will  be  so  heavily  taxed  as  to  be  a  class 
drink.  No  beer  above  2  per  cent  alcohol  in  strength 
will  be  permitted  sale.  Coming  state  monopolies  upon 
matches,  sugar  and  other  staples  will  make  good  the 
financial  deficits  caused  by  the  suppression  of  the 
vodka  monopoly.  The  war  Dr.  Bechterev  believed 
to  have  proved  helpful  to  Prohibition  in  that  it  had  put 
millions  of  drinkers  under  temporary  discipline.  He 
anticipated,  however,  no  reaction  when  they  returned 
home.  Opinion  favorable  to  Prohibition  has  so  de- 
veloped that  it  will  not  be  possible  to  break  it  down 
later.  The  movement  has,  in  fact,  safely  passed  the 
crest  of  the  hill. 

Then  I  rode  with  him  to  the  Psycho-Neurological 
Institute  at  the  other  side  of  the  city  and  talked  with 
his  assistant,  Dr.  Gorielov.  "The  blessings  of  Prohi- 
bition," averred  Dr.  Gorielov,  "cannot  be  exaggerated. 
They  are,  in  fact,,  so  great  and  so  varied  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  enumerate  them  all.  The  people  could  not 
be  more  satisfied.  There  was  a  certain  opportuneness 
in  choosing  the  outbreak  of  the  war  as  the  time  for  try- 
ing the  experiment.  Everybody  accepted  the  new  or- 
der as  a  matter  of  patriotism.  There  were  no  long 
discussions;  no  ups-and-downs  of  agitation.  Then 

view  of  this  fall  in  criminality,  deeming  the  amount  granted  by  the  central 
government  sufficient.  The  whole  phase  of  criminality  before  and  after 
Prohibition  will  be  the  object  of  careful  official  exposition.  The  following 
figures  for  Moscow  indicate  what  statistical  conclusions  will  probably  be 
reached:  Offenses 

Public  Against 

Assaults  Scandals  Authorities 

May     (vodka)     230  1,243  242 

Tune    (vodka)     199  1,306  265 

July    (half-Prohibition)     121  810  148 

August    (Prohibition)     68  447  72 

Various  types  of  crime  in  the  Kostroma  government  are  reported  as 
follows : 

April-June,  '14         Aug.-Oct,  '14 

Crimes  vs.   public  order    2,344  442 

Indecencies     89  8 

Murder     ,  74  24 


Offenses    vs.    public    officials 325  174 

34 


pt 

Bloody    assault    305  164 

Theft     1,429  944 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

when  the  proofs  had  been  delivered  ad  oculos  for  15 
months  public  opinion  was  made  up  both  as  to  the 
feasibility  and  the  value  of  Prohibition." 

When  the  war  broke  out  the  hospitals  of  the  In- 
stitute were  taken  over  for  the  use  of  insane  soldiers 
and  arrangements  were  made  for  the  reception  of  a 
number  of  such  cases  far  larger  than  in  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war,  since  the  number  of  troops  engaged  in 
the  present  war  is  so  much  greater.  But,  strange  to 
say,  the  number  of  insane  has  been  actually  less  be- 
cause of  the  almost  entire  absence  of  alcohol  psy- 
choses. In  fact  the  northern  armies  have  furnished 
just  one  case  of  alcoholic  insanity  and  the  record  of 
the  southern  armies,  whose  hospital  is  in  Moscow,  is 
equally  good.  This  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
French  and  German  armies,  where  the  number  of  al- 
cohol psychoses  has  been  very  large.  Attached  to  the 
Psycho-Neurological  Institute  is  a  special  hospital 
for  alcoholists.K  While  hundreds  came  to  it  before 
Prohibition,  tens  only  now  apply.  At  its  opening 
some  years  ago  a  press  of  5,000  applicants  sought 
treatment.  "We  hope  for  the  time,"  said  Dr.  Gorielov 
quaintly,  "when,  thanks  to  Prohibition,  there  will  be 
only  dogs  to  experiment  on  in  our  studies  of  alcohol- 
ism." Prof.  Bechterev  has  spoken  (pp.  99-100  Vovlos 
Alkoholisma)  of  "the  futile  and  infinite  discussions 
in  scientific  congresses  and  commissions,"  as  nothing 
more  than  "little  islands  in  the  vast  sea  of  popular 
drunkenness."  In  Russia  the  sea  has  drained  away  and 
the  congresses  and  commissions  can  continue  their 

K  This  Institute  hospital  has  an  unique  record  for  the  treatment  of 
alcoholists — a  very  high  per  cent  of  its  cases  having  been  cured.  It  is 
this  success  in  eliminating  the  apnetite  which  leads  Dr.  Gorielov  to  believe 
that  Prohibition  will  overcome  all  the  transitional  difficulties  from  substi- 
tute drinks.  "There  is  no  natural  craving  for  narcotics."  The  treatment 
uses  suggestion  (in  a  hvpnotarium — a  dark  room  with  low  lights,  a  sopor- 
ific jingle  of  music,  a  dial  plate  with  moving  colored  spots  which  induce 
hypnotic  drowsiness,  etc").  The  diet  is  wholly  vegetarian  with  a  pre- 
liminary milk  period.  No  tobacco  s  allowed.  There  is  much  open  air 
work,  hvdrotherapy,  continuous  baths,  etc. 

35 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

deliberations  upon  dry  land.  The  brackish  residue  of 
this  deluge  is,  according  to  Dr.  Gorielov,  inconsider- 
able. "Only  one-third  of  i  per  cent  of  the  Institute 
cases  are  due  to  denatured  spirits.  In  comparison  to 
the  immense  calamity  of  legalized  vodka  the  damage 
from  illicit  substitutes  is  negligible."  Dr.  Gorielov 
affirmed  his  belief  that  "in  25  or  30  years,  with  Prohi- 
bition, all  the  terrible  consequences  of  the  era  of  al- 
coholization will  have  disappeared  and  a  nearly  com- 
plete regeneration  of  the  nation  will  have  taken 
place."L 

"There  has  been,"  said  Dr.  Alexander  Mendels- 
sohn, at  the  meeting  (March  29,  '15)  ,of  the  Russian 
Society  for  the  Preservation  of  National  Health,  "a 
reduction  of  alcoholic  sickness  in  Petrograd  and  of  the 
attendance  at  the  anti-alcohol  ambulatoria,  a  decline 
in  the  number  of  the  dipsomaniac  insane  at  the  Obuk- 
hovsky  Hospital;  also  of  general  cases  of  mental  af- 
fection in  the  capital.  An  asylum  for  drunkards  in 
Tula  reports  that  the  average  number  of  alcoholists 
received  monthly  up  to  August  I,  1914,  was  between 
400  and  500.  In  the  first  six  months  of  Prohibition 
(August-January)  the  total  received  was  but  537. 
Only  eight  of  these  were  sent  monthly  to  hospitals  as 
against  an  average  monthly  shipment  of  100-150  before 
Prohibition.12  These  were  denatured  spirit  cases.  A 
friend  of  the  writer,  a  former  Red  Cross  sister,  living 
in  this  government  of  Tula,  140  vcrsts  from  Moscow, 
remarks  that  the  epidemics  which  came  periodically 
out  of  Moscow,  spreading  through  the  country,  are 

L  Prof.  Simpson  of  Edinburg  quotes  "one  of  the  most  distinguished 
(Russian)  professors  of  economics"  to  the  same  effect.  "What  I  have 
seen  compels  me  to  ask  for  absolute  restriction  (i.  e.,  Prohibition)  of 
beer  as  well  as  of  vodka.  If  we  can  arrange  that  for  twenty  or  twenty- 
five  years  the  population  will  not  have  the  opportunity  to  drink.  Then 
the  question  is  solved.  If  we  can  do  that — and  I  am  not  unhopeful — 
Russia  will  be  saved." 

12  Vestnik  Tresvosti,    April,    1915;    p.    22. 

36 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

far  rarer  than  formerly.  This  is  due,  no  doubt,  to 
the  increased  resistance  of  a  de-alcoholized  and  bet- 
ter-fed population.  The  same  thing  is,  she  reports, 
noticeable  in  country  families  when  in  the  spring 
time  children  are  taken  with  cramps  and  bowel  trou- 
ble from  eating  green  fruits,  etc.  Once  the  sickness 
would  bring  down  the  whole  family.  This  is  no  longer 
the  case.  The  Bacteriological  and  Medico-Sanitary 
Organization  for  Fighting  Epidemic  Diseases  During 
the  War  confirms  the  opinion  of  this  observer.  It  has 
formally  expressed  its  satisfaction  and  thanks  to  the 
Tsar  for  closing  the  drinkshops,  "in  view  of  the  great 
aetiological  influence  which  alcohol  has  on  the  causes 
and  course  of  infectious  disease."  Equally  important 
is  the  fact  that  the  Medical  Faculty  of  the  University 
of  Moscow  has,  as  a  corporation,  thanked  the  Tsar 
for  Prohibition.  "Our  land  is  now  temperate."  The 
Russian  Imperial  Society  for  the  People's  Health, 
through  its  sub-committee  on  the  alcohol  question, 
has  issued  a  pro-Prohibition  statement.  The  Pirogov 
Society,  the  leading  Russian  medical  society,  after 
three  days  of  deliberation  on  the  subject,  has  done 
the  same  (see  Appendix  pp.  71-79).  Russian  officers  are 
quoted  (Die  Alkoholfrage  Zcitimgskorrcspondenz, 
April  15,  '15;  similar  statements  in  Vestnik  Tresvosti, 
Feb.,  1915).  "Etherizing  of  the  wounds  takes  place 
quickly  and  without  disturbance.  The  healing  of 
wounds  is  speedier.  The  disappearance  of  alcohol  has 
had  a  wonderful  effect  on  the  general  health  condi- 
tions of  the  army.  Forced  marches  of  an  incredible 
length  are  undertaken,  with  battles  between,  and  yet 
our  men  are  not  exhausted.  In  spite  of  the  exception- 
ally unfavorable  conditions  the  number  of  sick  is  less 
than  in  ordinary  barrack  life.  Wherein  lies  this  miracle 

37 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

of  physical  resistance?  The  doctor  says,  "The  strength 
of  the  body  is  not  destroyed  by  indulgence  in  alcohol." 
In  the  huge  Morosov  factories  in  Moscow,  which  em- 
ploy over  10,000  persons,  a  fall  of  nearly  40  per  cent 
in  the  number  of  accidents  was  registered  in  the  first 
three  months  of  Prohibition.  The  statistics  of  trau- 
matic lesions  of  the  Obukhovsky  Hospital,  Petrograd, 
tell  a  similar  story.  During  the  last  half  year  of  1913 
there  were  710;  of  1914,  237. 

On  the  morning  on  which  the  writer  left  Petro- 
grad his  attention  was  called  to  the  press  items  of  the 
Imperial  University,  which  appeared  in  the  Birzhcvya 
Viedomosti  for  that  day  (Sept.  9,  '15).  It  was  stated 
that  the  medical  department  was  finding  great  diffi- 
culty in  securing  bodies  for  the  dissection  rooms.  The 
same  report  is  mentioned  from  other  places.  It  is  cus- 
tomary to  send  bodies  of  persons  dying  on  the  streets, 
if  they  are  not  asked  for,  to  the  medical  schools.  Dr. 
Grigoriev  has  made  a  striking  chart  of  suicides  and 
attempted  suicides  in  Petrograd  between  1906  and 
1915.  The  curve  which  rises  to  a  great  height  after 
1906  as  a  consequence,  it  is  alleged,  of  the  disillusion 
which  followed  the  abortive  revolution  of  1905,  fell 
abruptly  in  the  last  months  of  1912.  The  figures  are 
as  follows : 

" 

1906  903 1  191 1  2962 

1907  13771  i912  3I23 

1908  • 2268J  1913 2614 

1909  23791*1914  1523 

1910  3196 

*With  only  five  months  of  Prohibition. 


38 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

The  statistics  for  1914  and  the  six  months  of  1915 
are  as  follows: 


1914.             Men  Women 
January               1  10         72 

1915.        Men  Wo 
Tanuarv            -  -  i^ 

men 
39 
25 
49 

22 

17 
21 

r  of 
was 
war 
half 

February        ..114        65 

February    .  . 

.  .24 

March                 146        57 

March 

.  .  1$ 

Aoril                   144.        67 

April   

...26 

May   129        64 

May    

...28 

Tune                    1  20        ss 

June   •  

.  .27 

Tulv  .                .  64.        AS 

ndelssohn,  the 
the  first  half 
i,  but  205,  and 
£n  came  in  the 

nnmbe 
of  1914 
yet  the 
second 

August  18        19 
September  .  .  .  .    16        31 
October  24        29 

November  ....   29        26 
December   ....  26        41 

According  to   Dr.   Me 
suicides  in  Warsaw  during 
419;  during  the  second  hal 
terror  of  the  Polish  campai 
of  the  year. 

V. 

THE  societies  for  the  protection  of  animals  re- 
port better  times  for  the  lower  creation  and 
the  women  and  children  are  as  gratified  as 
the  horses  and  cows.    Why  shouldn't  they 
be?     In  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Russian  homes  the 
noise  of  drunken  fracas  and  broken  glass  has  died 
away.M    One  hears  now  only  the  peaceful  hum  of  the 

M  The  Chief  of  Police  of  Yeletz  exhibited  the  register  of  drunkards 
to  Mr.  Faressov.  a  correspondent  of  the  Novoe  Vremya.  From  this  it 
appears  that,  in  1913-14,  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  from  400  to  500 
drunks  were  recorded  every  month  at  police  quarters.  After  Prohibition 
they  fell  to  between  three  and  four.  "The  drunkards'  register,"  said  the 
Secretary  of  Police,  "is  more  eloquent  than  words.  Formerly  I  was  called 
on  for  assistance  by  women  who  had  been  beaten  and  tortured  by  drunken 
husbands.  Now  there  is  an  end  of  bruises  and  livid  wounds." 

39 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

samovar.  The  whole  carillon  of  Ivan  Veliky,  with  its 
30  joy-bells  and  the  great  bell's  bass  thrown  in,  would 
not  suffice  to  express  the  satisfaction  of  Russian  wo- 
men with  the  new  emancipation.  The  Petrograd  cor- 
respondent of  Svcnska  Dagbladet,  from  whom  we 
have  quoted  elsewhere,  has  described  the  sights  on 
pre-Prohibition  paydays  outside  Russian  factory  en- 
trances. "Hundreds  of  women  could  be  seen  waiting 
for  their  husbands  in  order  to  rescue  a  little  of  the 
weekly  pay  before  it  was  too  late.  The  greater  part 
of  the  wages  earned  both  by  laborer  and  peasant  were 
raked  into  the  Monopoly  shops."  Now  the  women 
are  able  to  visit  the  markets  regularly  on  Saturdays. 
In  the  Baltic  provinces  during  the  first  few  weeks  of 
Prohibition  they  went  over  and  over  again  to  the 
newspaper  offices  to  inquire  "if  it  would  be  so  for- 
ever." "The  little  father  is  beginning  to  be  good  to 
his  children,"  they  would  say;  "he  is  giving  them 
honey."  In  Archangel  3,000  women  ask  the  city  gov- 
ernment to  petition  for  the  Prohibition  of  the  sale  of 
all  alcoholic  drinks  for  all  time  and  the  council  de- 
cides so  to  do  by  a  vote  of  30  to  7.  When  the  Rus- 
sians occupied  Tilsit,  they  extended  Prohibition  to 
the  East  Prussian  town.  "For  the  Prohibition  of  all 
kinds  of  intoxicants,"  says  the  Mitteilungcn  dcs 
Dciitschcn  Frauenmissionbundes,  (Nov.  2,  1915),  "we 
were  thankful  from  the  bottom  of  our  hearts.  Many 
poor  wives  of  drinking  men  were  tempted  to  wish  that 
the  Russians  might  stay  on  for  good."  Prohibition 
would  have  meant  a  Peace  of  Tilsit  of  indefinite  dura- 
tion in  many  Tilsit  homes.  It  is  freely  remarked 
that  any  attempt  to  reinstate  vodka  in  the  Russian 
villages  would  provoke  a  fighting  spirit  among  the 
women  beside  which  the  stormiest  demonstrations  of 
the  English  suffragettes  would  be  but  zephyrs. 

40 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

The  children,  too,  soon  felt  the  change.  From 
the  first  days  letters  from  the  peasantry  began  pour- 
ing into  the  Imperial  family.  Fathers  would  write 
to  the  Tsar,  mothers  to  the  Tsarina.  The  children  ap- 
pealed to  the  Tsarovitch.  "Thank  your  father  that 
we  also  have  a  father"  would  run  their  letters.  "Ask 
your  father  that  we  may  not  lose  our  father  again 

through  drink."  Mme.  ,  the  daughter  of  a 

Russian  admiral,  has  a  day  nursery  in  Petrograd  for 
65  or  more  boys  and  girls  of  from  three  to  twelve  years 
of  age.  Formerly  there  was  much  misery  among 
them.  Now,  she  tells  me,  the  children  both  of  whose 
parents  live,  have  nearly  all  left  and  the  nursery  is 
practically  devoted  to  orphans  and  half-orphans.  The 
first  class  does  not  need  further  help;  they  are  well 
fed  and  cared  for.  From  different  reporters  I  learn 
that  formerly  peasant  children  in  a  family  would 
frequently  have  only  one  pair  of  shoes  among  them. 
They  were,  therefore,  obliged  to  take  turns  going  to 
school  in  cold  weather.  Now  it  is  common  for  each 
child  to  have  its  own  footgear. 

Delegations  of  peasants  traveled  to  Petrograd  to 
petition  the  Tsar  to  continue  the  Prohibition  regime. 
When  they  could  not  go  in  person  they  sent  letters 
from  their  poor  villages.  "We  know  neither  how  to 
write  nor  read,  but  we  will  pay  to  the  Minister  of 
Finance  the  money  which  he  receives  from  the  sale 
of  vodka  and  with  joy.  They  can  impose  new  taxes. 
They  can  lay  a  special  drunkards'  tax.  Everybody 
will  pay.  The  government  will  then  get  its  millions 
and  we  shall  be  in  good  health  and  prosper."13 
"Heads  of  large  concerns  employing  labor,"  said  the 
Minister  of  Finance,  "have  said  they  would  pay  in 
cold  cash  the  sums  necessary  to  cover  the  deficit  in 
revenue,  and  could  afford  it  easily  from  the  larger 

13  Lf Abstinence.    No.    6.    1915. 

41 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

incomes  derived  from  the  increased  capacity  of  em- 
ployees." When  the  Tsar's  telegram  proclaiming  per- 
manent Prohibition  was  published  it  was  greeted  with 
jubilation.  "It  is  as  the  resurrection  from  the  dead!" 
"I  could  kiss  the  Tsar's  feet !"  Thanksgiving  services 
were  held  in  churches  all  over  Russia.  Newspapers 
without  regard  to  party  color  devoted  articles  to  the 
new  emancipation.  Mr.  Hamilton  Fyffe,  after  re- 
marking on  the  strangeness  of  the  strange  phenom- 
enon— the  sudden  disappearance  of  all  alcoholic  drink 
from  a  nation  in  which  it  had  bulked  so  largely  for 
centuries,  continued:  "Yet  there  is  one  thing 
stranger.  Nobody  makes  any  audible  complaint.  The 
truth  is  nine-tenths  of  the  nation  are  convinced  of  the 
benefit  of  giving  up  (vodka)."14  But  this,  indeed,  is  a 
very  negative  statement  of  the  general  content.  The 
intensity  of  sentiment  is  expressed  far  more  sharply 
by  M.  Bark:  "This  law  is  felt  by  the  Russian  people 
to  be,  not  a  restriction,  but  an  incalculable  boon  con- 
ferred upon  them  by  their  provident  monarch."  (In- 
terview with  the  Paris  correspondent  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  Feb.  4).  "If  I  should  propose  to  annul 
Prohibition  there  would  be  a  revolution  in  Russia." 
(Interview  with  Mr.  Lloyd-George.)15 

A  steady  stream  of  appeal  for  the  retention  of 
Prohibition  has  come  from  the  local  governments. 
These  are  directed  against  wine  and  beer,  as  well  as 
against  vodka.  On  the  27th  of  September,  1914,  cities 
and  rural  communes  were  given  permission  to  forbid 
the  sale  of  these  drinks  during  war  time.  On  the  I3th 
of  October  similar  powers  were  extended  to  the 
zemstvos.  The  Petrograd  City  Duma,  by  a  vote  of  96 
to  39,  passed  wine  and  beer  Prohibition.  The  Moscow 
Duma  did  the  same  by  an  even  larger  majority  (112 

14  Daily   Mail.    Feb.    4.    1915. 

15  Speech   at   Bangor,   Wales,   Feb.    2X).    1915. 

42 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

to  26.)  Hundreds  of  communes,  in  taking  similar  ac- 
tion, passed  resolutions  in  addition  favoring  the 
permanent  suppression  of  these  two  drinks,  in  the 
protocols  of  great  numbers  of  workmen's  co-opera- 
tives, peasants'  unions,  societies  of  lawyers,  and  sci- 
entific societies,  one  finds  resolutions  urging  perman- 
ent wine  and  beer  Prohibition.  Some  also  make  sug- 
gestions as  to  methods  for  effectively  checking  im- 
proper sale  of  denatured  spirits.  In  reading  the  re- 
ports pouring  in  from  all  quarters  of  Russia  one  gets 
an  impression  of  an  unanimity  of  sentiment  not  un- 
like the  overwhelming  democratic  sentiment  in  the 
France  of  1789  as  depicted  in  Taine's  studies  of  the 
documents  of  the  Revolution.  Bishop  Nikander,  of 
Viatka,  telegraphs  to  the  Viatka  zemstov  thanking  it 
for  its  decision  to  suppress  wine  and  beer.  The  Wait- 
ers' Aid  Union  of  Moscow,  on  the  pth  of  November, 
sends  word  to  the  Moscow  city  goverment  stating 
that  the  temporary  difficulties  into  which  Prohibition 
has  brought  the  waiters  are  as  nothing,  compared  to 
the  misery  which  wine  had  brought  on  others.  They 
bespeak,  therefore,  the  continuance  of  Prohibition.16 
When  the  wine  interests  of  Moscow  appeal  secretly 
to  the  central  government  to  rescind  the  city's  Prohi- 
bition of  wine,  the  Mayor,  Tchelnokov,  protests 
against  any  interference  and,  going  over  to  the  of- 
fensive, sends  circulars  to  the  city  governments  all 
over  Russia,  urging  them  also  to  adopt  wine  and  beer 
Prohibition.  Unique  and  admirable  Mayor !  The 
head  of  the  Russian  railways  sends  out  a  circular  to 
all  sub-managers  giving  them  permission  to  prohibit 
wine  and  beer  at  all  railway  restaurants  and  buffets 
and  the  permission  is  promptly  acted  on.  When  the 
city  Duma  of  Kansk,  in  Siberia,  suggests  allowing 
the  sale  of  wine  up  to  16  per  cent  strength,  the  people 

16  Vestnik    Tresvosti.    Jan.,    1915. 

43 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

call  a  mass  meeting  and  oblige  them  to  close  up 
everything  in  sight.  Bishops  and  clergy  appeal  to 
the  Holy  Synod  to  bring  its  powerful  influence  to 
bear  in  favor  of  permanent  Prohibition  and  the  Synod 
responds  magnificently  (see  Appendix  pp.  69-71).  When 
the  city  authorities  in  Vladimir  propose  that  all  vodka 
dispensed  for  medicine  shall  be  sold  from  one  shop,  a 
physician  arises  in  the  council  protesting  that  vodka 
is  no  medicine  and  that  physicians  should  have  no 
right  to  prescribe  it.  Staroff,  an  anti-Prohibitionist, 
in  the  Kursk  semstva,  remarks  that  he  has  sat  in 
zemsti'os  for  30  years  and  vodka  has  never  been  men- 
tioned. "Now  the  talk  is  everywhere  about  Prohibi- 
tion. It  is  a  true  epidemic  !"17  Already  up  to  March, 
1915,  8,390  rural  communes  and  467  cities  or  govern- 
ment zemstvos  had  petitioned  the  government  on  the 
subject.  Eighty-seven  per  cent  of  all  resolutions  asked 
for  permanent  Prohibition  and  the  inclusion  of  wine 
and  beer  in  the  Prohibition.  At  times  expressions  of 
fear  lest  the  good  thing  should  slip  through  the  fin- 
gers and  escape,  have  come  to  utterance.  Citizens  of 
Nijni  Novgorod,  disturbed  by  rumors,  besought  the 
Grand  Duke  Constantine  Constantinovitch,  as  honor- 
ary citizen  of  their  town,  to  send  some  statement  from 
the  Tsar  on  the  matter.  The  Tsar  wrote  on  the  tele- 
gram which  Constantine  sent  him:  "The  people  need 
not  fear!  No  sale  of  beer  and  wine  will  be  allowed 
during  the  war!"  and  the  Grand  Duke  Nikolai  Nikol- 
aiovitch  issued  a  statement  (July  21,  1915),  through 
General  Krupenski  to  the  effect  that  "the  rumor 
spread  by  evil-minded  men  that  the  sale  of  wine  was 
again  to  be  permitted  was  a  false  rumor."  Russian 
anti-alcoholists  are  concerned  to  see  other  nations 
pass  into  the  same  great  experience.  At  a  private 
conference,  at  which  the  writer  was  present,  they 

17  Vestnik  Tresvosti,   Jan..    1915. 
44 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

said :  "We  must  appeal  to  temperance  men  in  all 
lands  to  hurry,  hurry!  They  do  not  know  how  good 
a  thing  Prohibition  is."  Two  utterances,  one  from  a 
peasant,  the  other  from  a  savant,  sum  up  sufficiently 
well  the  general  feeling.  Mr.  Romanoff,  an  owner 
of  factories  in  Louchek,  is,  although  a  millionaire,  an 
illiterate  moujik.  "There  have  been  two  happy  events 
in  my  life,"  said  the  old  peasant ;  "the  emancipation  of 
.the  serfs  and  their  emancipation  from  drink.  I  could 
weep  for  joy!  I  would  prefer  death  to  seeing  the  peo- 
ple drinking  again,"  and  he  crossed  himself  reverently 
when  he  learned  that  the  government  was  determined 
never  to  reopen  the  vodka  shops.  Dr.  Ramstadt, 
decent  in  Asiatic  languages  in  the  University  of  Hel- 
singfors,  recounted  to  the  writer  a  conversation  which 
he  had  in  Petrograd  with  Dr.  Rudnev,  the  vice-secre- 
tary of  the  Imperial  Academy  of  Sciences.  The  meat 
of  the  latter's  remarks  was  contained  in  one  forcible 
sentence:  "Anyone  agitating  for  the  return  of  drink 
in  Russia  ought  to  be  lynched. "N 

N  The  Imperial  Duma  opened  on  the  9th  of  February,  1915.  Presi- 
dent Rodsjanko  in  his  address  for  the  day  referred  to  vodka  Prohibition 
as  follows : 

"In  the  midst  of  the  present  world-war  the  Russian  people  are  ex- 
periencing' a  transformation  such  as  has  never  before  happened  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Our  honored  ruler  has  sought  to  exterminate  one 
of  its  worst  enemies  and  has  given  a  new  direction  to  the  people's  1'fe. 
Through  this,  the  most  important  action  of  our  day — that  of  curing  the 
people  of  a  deep,  ingrown  evil — a  decisive  step  has  been  taken.  The  whole 
land  of  Russia  turns  with  the  feelings  of  deepest  gratitude  to  the  Tsar 
with  the  prayer,  'Accept,  great  ruler,  our  deepest  appreciation.  Thy  people 
believe  fully  and  firmly  that  thou  hast  made  an  end  of  all  this  past  evil.' 

There  are  many  striking  illustrations  of  the  high  valuation  of  Pro- 
hibition. Michael  Tchelichov  was  much  ridiculed  some  years  ago  for  his 
fiery  anti-alcoholism.  In  1915  he  died,  after  seeing  his  great  ideal  realized. 
Prof.  Golubov  of  the  medical  faculty  of  the  University  of  Moscow,  while 
lecturing  to  his  students  upon  alcoholism  as  a  cause  of  disease,  took  oc- 
casion to  pay  a  tribute  to  this  unwearied  and  self-sacrificing  life  now 
closed.  At  the  end  of  the  lecture  the  students  rose  in  a  body  in  respect- 
ful tribute.  The  city  of  Samara,  which  Tchelichov  represented  in  the 
Duma,  decided  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  its  municipal  council  to  place 
his  portrait  in  the  legislative  chamber,  to  found  a  memorial  anti-alcohol 
museum,  to  erect  three  memorial  stipendia  in  the  middle  schools,  and  to 
change  the  name  of  the  street  Saratovskaija  to  Tchelichovskaia.  Then 
they  appointed  a  commission  to  elaborate  more  detailed  plans  for  hon- 
oring the  great  antagonist  of  alcohol." 

45 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

There  is  little  to  record  in  the  way  of  counter- 
opinion.  In  Estonia  and  Courland  the  people  have 
been  unable  to  forbid  the  sale  of  beer  and  wine  to 
the  same  effect  as  elsewhere,  because  of  (Baltic)  Ger- 
man influence.  In  Libau  the  proposal  failed  by  a  tie 
vote  in  the  city  council — 25  to  25.  Of  the  opposition 
24  were  Germans  and  one  Russian  (a  paedagogue!) 
"Specifically  German,"  said  their  prophet,  Nietzsche, 
"is  the  alcohol-poisoning  of  Europe."18  With  the  ad- 
vance of  the  German  armies  in  Poland  the  beer  holes 
have  reopened.  It  is  intimated  by  some  that  "society" 
wishes  the  return  of  wine.  If  this  incomparable  moral 
triumph  is  to  be  nullified  and  become  a  dream  of  the 
past  we  may  be  sure  it  will  be  because  of  this  element. 
Wine  is  the  thin  edge  of  the  anti-Prohibition  wedge 
and  the  people  who  drive  it  in  are  ever  "the  culti- 
vated." Certain  of  the  upper  class  in  Petrograd  are 
described  as  the  most  obstinate  in  their  adhesion  to 
drink,  going  across  to  Wiborg  (in  Finland)  to  get 
wine  in  the  first-class  restaurants,  where  its  sale  is 
allowed.  And  yet,  if  the  privileged  but  knew  it,  Pro- 
hibition, by  relieving  extreme  misery  and  by  check- 
ing the  spirit  of  violence,  really  constitutes  one  of 
the  best  safe-guards  against  excess,  both  revolution- 
ary and  otherwise,  and,  therefore,  naturally  one  of 
their  most  respectable  defenses.  For  example,  Mr. 
Bartchenko,  a  notary  public  at  Yeletz,  remarks  that  if 
after  the  surrender  of  Przsemysl  to  the  Austrians  it 
had  been  possible  for  the  peasants  to  have  gotten 
hold  of  vodka  their  suspicions  would  have  led  them 
to  attack  the  authorities  and  the  well-to-do  in  their 
neighborhoods. 

18  Nietzsche,   Zur   Geneologie   der   Moral,   p.    150. 

46 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 


VI 

IF  ever  anything  deserved  the  title  of  a  bolt  from 
the  blue  for  the  international  poison  interests 
it  has  been  Russian  Prohibition.  As  soon  as 
they  got  their  wind  after  the  first  surprise  they 
began  setting  up  their  familiar  shabby  scare-crows  in 
the  international  press.  Russian  Prohibition  was  "a 
failure."  An  American  resident  in  Russia  reported 
to  me  seeing  half-page  advertisements  in  newspapers 
of  the  American  Central  West  affirming,  from  alleged 
official  documents,  the  Muscovite  fiasco.  These  docu- 
ments were  saucy  fabrications.  Listen  to  the  Giornale 
d'  Italia:  "The  consumption  of  denatured  alcohol  has 
passed  all  bounds.  Numbers  have  intoxicated  them- 
selves with  shellac.  Traveling  peddlers  circulate 
through  the  country  selling  all  kinds  of  mixtures. 
The.  people,  instead  of  drinking  the  scientifically  dis- 
tilled products  of  the  great  government  distilleries, 
among  the  most  perfect  in  the  world,  are  drinking  all 
kinds  of  lurid  drinks.  Vodka,  compared  with  these 
substitutes,  appears  a  minor  evil,  perilous  drink  to  be 
sure,  but  relatively  honest."  One  risks  getting  one's 
feet  wret  in  such  floods  of  crocodile  pathos! 

It  is  obvious  that  all  this  can  be  true  and  false 
at  the  same  time.  True,  because  such  phenomena 
do  actually  appear,  being  the  natural  and  expected 
sequelae  of  the  preceding  period  of  alcohol  satura- 
tion ;  false  in  the  attempt  to  prove  them  of  decisive, 
or  even  considerable,  importance  in  the  general  situ- 
ation.0 The  Vestnik  Tresvosti  (April,  1915)  quotes 

O  In  the  Int.  Monats  z.  Erforsch.  d.  Alkoholismus.  Sept.,  1915.  is 
a  translation  from  "The  Voice  of  the  People,  an  Official  Investigation  by 
P.  E.  Termitin  in  the  government  of  Penza,  1915."  concerning  the  atti- 
tude of  the  population  towards  the  Prohibition  of  alcoholic  drinks.  This 
is  based  on  an  enquete  in  206  Penza  parishes  from  which  2,167  answers 
were  received.  Of  these  64.8  per  cent  declared  that  they  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  p&ssinjf  to  enforred  abstinence :  22.6  per  cent  declared  that  it 
was  hard  at  first  but  easy  afterwards,  and  12.6  per  cent  that  it  was  still 

47 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

statistics  to  the  effect  that  1825  illicit  stills  were  sup- 
pressed in  the  Russian  Empire  in  the  last  six  months 
of  1914  (five  months  of  Prohibition).  Of  these  160 
only  made  spirits,  92  rectified  varnish,  and  60  rectified 
denatured  spirits.  But  in  1912  there  were  discov- 
ered in  the  whole  year  3,073  illegal  stills  alongside 
of  2,913  legal  ones.  There  has  been,  therefore,  no 
clearly  proved  increase  in  the  amount  of  illicit  distill- 
ing. It  is  further,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  easier  now 
to  detect  illicit  distilling  than  formerly.  A  striking 
illustration  comes  from  Riga,  where  a  large  distiller. 
Von  Zur  Muhlen,  was,  for  years,  defrauding  the  ex- 
cise with  ingenious  arrangements  of  subterranean 
pipes.  Not  until  the  Prohibition  months  was  he  dis- 
covered and  given  the  generous  fine  of  1,300,000 
rubles.  There  is  reported  to  have  been  a  certain 
amount  of  smuggling  of  spirits  into  Siberia  from 
China  as  of  opium  into  China  from  Siberia.  It  is 
also  said  that  "Monopol  Vodka"  from  America  has 
been  seen  in  Siberia.  But  if  these  things  really  occur 
they  occur  on  a  very  small  scale.  Mr.  Sherwell 
speaks  of  "the  pushing  of  the  sale  of  a  so-called  grape 
wine,  a  poisonous  liquid."  This  is  apparently  none 
other  than  Laddevin  of  his  blessed  Christiania,  the 
Tarragona  of  his  peerless  Gothenburg,  the  Blud-- 
dervin  of  his  impeccable  Stockholm.  We  heard  noth- 

hard  for  them.  The  next  question  had  to  do  with  the  consequences  of 
abstinence  (better  appetite,  better  health,  greater  desire  to  work,  better 
family  relations  as  against  weakness,  disinclination  to  work,  irritation,  loss 
of  appetite).  Eighty  per  cent  spoke  for  the  first  category  of  results:  20 
per  cent  for  the  latter.  When  it  was  asked  how  many  had  used  substi- 
tute drinks  for  the  alcoholic  ones  259  confessed  to  having  done  so  against 
1,626  who  had  not  (14  per  cent  and  86  per  cent,  respectively).  Kvass,  a 
slightly  fermented  drink  like  root  beer,  was  mentioned  by  125  of  the  259, 
a  kind  of  barley  beer  in  30  cases,  wine  22,  denatured  spirits  51,  Hoffman 
drops  10,  etc.  But  the  majority  of  these  after  a  short  trial  stopped.  "Of 
1,885  men,  after  a  trial  of  two  months'  time,  only  54,  or  3  per  cent, 
sought  to  get  around  the  law  and  the  most  of  these  satisfied,  their  thirst 
with  fermented  drinks:  1,656,  or  84  per  cent  of  those  asked,  desired  per- 
manent Prohibition  of  both  vodka  and  fermented  drinks.  A  similar  en- 
quete  was  made  by  the  officials  of  the  Government  of  Charkov.  Only 
59  out  of  1,352  (4.3  per  cent)  yere  mentioned  as  using  denatured  spirits. 

48 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

ing-  of  it  in  Petrograd.p  The  single  critic  of  Prohibi- 
tion the  writer  met,  an  American,  added  to  the  old 
formula:  "One  can  get  it  in  the  hotels.  There  is  no 
trouble,"  the  important  qualification :  "It  will  cost 
you  50  rubles."  Denatured  spirits  are  drunk  some- 
what, as  in  other  lands.  One  recalls,  for  example,  the 
30  or  40  persons  poisoned  by  methyl-alcohol  in  a  Ber- 
lin night  refuge  three  yeafs  ago,  some  of  whom  died. 
Whatever  drinking  of  denatured  spirits  exists  in  Rus- 
sia at  present  is  chiefly  in  the  factory  districts,  not 
among  the  peasants.  Yet  one  informant  tells  me  that 
10  years  ago  denatured  spirits  were  not  infrequently 
drunk  by  peasants  because  they  were  cheaper  than 
vodka.  The  government  is  honestly  preparing  to 
plug  up  all  the  rat  holes.  It  has  offered  prizes  up  to 
30.000  rubles  for  the  best  method  of  rendering  de- 
natured spirits  repulsive  to  the  taste  and  of  causing 
vomiting  or  diarrhoea  to  those  drinking  it,  together 
with  a  great  number  of  other  prizes  for  the  better 
utilization  of  alcohol  for  power,  light  and  manufactur- 
ing purposes.  These  are  to  be  awarded  in  1916. 
When  Prohibition  first  existed  it  was  very  easy  to 
separate  denatured  spirits  by  straining  through  char- 
coal or  fine  glass.  Other  elements  have  now  been 
added  which  make  the  process  more  difficult.  A  skull 

P  Prof.  Simpson  of  Edinburg  University  mentions  having  "conversed 
with  more  than  a  hundred  men  whose  positions  entitled  them  to  speak 
with  authority."  "There  was  not  one  who  did  not  speak  approvingly  of 
the  vodka  Prohibition,  and  most  of  them  simply  on  empirical  grounds — 
because  of  the  results."  The  only  adverse  comment  we  have  seen  con- 
cerning Russian  Prohibition  comes  from  Mr.  Sherwell.  a  gentleman  with 
a  touching,  old-fashioned  faith  in  the  Gothenburg  System,  but  who  gen- 
erally gets  the  spy-glass  to  h-'s  blind  eye  when  the  question  of  Prohibition 
is  under  consideration.  From  his  distant  watchtower  on  the  British  Isles 
he  discovers  that  the  prisons  of  Kursk  are  full  of  drunkards,  that  mor- 
tality from  drunkenness  in  Petrograd  has  increased  under  Prohibition,  etc.. 
etc.  (Contemporary  Review,  May.  1915.)  He  further  mentions  a  great 
increase  in  card-playing  (!)  as  one  of  the  deplorable  consequences  of 
Prohibition.  Count  Skarsczynski  of  the  Russian  Alcohol  Monopoly,  with 
whom  Mr.  Sherwell  has  been  in  correspondence,  told  the  writer  in  his 
office  in  Petrograd  that  men  were  even  eating  yeast  in  Russia  to  satisfy 
tVieir  alcohol  cravings!  Such  statements  have  value  as  indicating  how 
difficult  it  is  for  anti-Prohibitionists  to  find  anything  with  which  to  dis- 
credit the  Russian  experiment. 

49 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

and  bones  is  placed  on  the  label  of  every  bottle  with 
the  words :  "Pure  Poison !  Beware !"  and  it  is  ex- 
plained that  it  can  ruin  eyes  and  even  kill,  since  it  is 
a  corrosive  poison.  Freeing  it  from  denaturing  ele- 
ments is  strictly  forbidden.  It  is  sold  only  to  respect- 
able persons,  in  some  places  only  to  women,  and  only 
between  the  hours  of  from  9  to  12  and  from  2  to  5. 
These  are  hours  when  factory  workers  cannot  easily 
get  it.  The  shops  are  closed  on  all  Sundays  and  holi- 
days and  on  the  days  preceding  Sundays  and  holi- 
days. As  holidays  are  very  common  in  Russia,  this 
is  a  tremendous  restriction.  Thus,  a  lady  told  me  that 
on  the  preceding  week  when  she  tried  to  buy  spirits 
for  burning  purposes  she  found  that  Wednesday  and 
Friday  with  Sunday  were  holidays.  This  made  conse- 
quently a  closed  period  from  Monday  night  to  the 
next  Monday  morning.  Plans  are  under  way  for  al- 
lowing the  sale  of  denatured  spirits  only  to  those  pos- 
sessing a  sales  book  provided  with  coupons.  In  many 
instances  men  arrested  for  drunkenness  from  methyl- 
ated spirits  are  exiled  to  the  country  and  told  not  to 
return  to  the  city.  All  this  shows  the  tremendous 
earnestness  of  the  government  in  its  determination 
to  uphold  the  Prohibition  system. 

Vodka  is  sold  for  medicinal  purposes  (compresses, 
etc.)  by  druggists,  but  these  are  very  disinclined  to 
handle  it.  It  can  be  obtained  only  on  prescription 
from  druggists  and  the  druggist  must  telephone  to 
the  doctor  to  make  sure  that  the  prescription  is  valid. 
One  must  often  wait  several  days  before  one  can  fin- 
ally get  it.  A  register  of  sales  is  kept  and  if  any  doc- 
tor has  over-numerous  vodka  prescriptions  it  is  in- 
quired into.  Two  Petrograd  doctors  are  said  to  have 
been  despatched  to  the  front  for  having  filled  too 
many  prescriptions  of  this  type.  Dr.  Gorielov  thinks 
the  tendency  to  hunt  substitutes  is  on  the  retour. 

50 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

Abnormal  craving  seems  to  be  subsiding.  "Let  them 
drink  it  and  kill  themselves,"  say  the  common  people 
of  incorrigible  alcoholists.  "We  shall  then  be  quit  of 
the  whole  thing."  A  statement,  which  the  writer 
heard,  but  could  not  verify,  affirmed  that  the  police 
even  had  recourse  to  the  stomach  pump  to  frighten 
those  who  insist  on  drinking  impossible  liquids. 
Drunkenness,  as  well  as  the  illegal  sale  of  wine  and 
beer,  is  punishable  with  fines  up  to  3,000  rubles  and 
with  three  months'  imprisonment.  Petrograd  and 
Kronstad  apothecaries  who  have  ventured  to  sell  Hoff- 
mann drops  or  other  substitutes  have  been  treated  in 
the  same  way.  These  Draconian  penalties  certainly 
imply  an  unbending  decision  on  the  part  of  the  au- 
thorities. 

VII 

IT  may  be  suggested  that  such  impressive  conse- 
quences of  Prohibition  could  only  appear  in  a 
land  whose  previous  alcoholism  had  been  of  an 
extreme  type.  That  this  is  not  altogether  true 
is  clear  from  the  experience  of  Finland.  Finland  had, 
before  Prohibition,  the  lowest  per  capita  alcohol  con- 
sumption in  the  world.  All  that  regulation  and  re- 
striction has  accomplished  anywhere  had  been  there 
carried  out.  It  is  instructive,  therefore,  to  see  how 
far  the  best  that  can  be  done  by  palliative  falls  short 
of  Prohibition.  Prohibition  in  Finland  quickly 
brought  the  latent  and  surviving  alcoholism  to  light 
• — and  remedied  it.  The  average  monthly  consump- 
tion of  spirits  dropped  from  423,244  liters  to  37,391, 
of  which  20,000  were  used  by  apothecaries  for  legiti- 
mate purposes,  leaving  only  17,391  liters  disposed  of 
in  first-class  restaurants  (Kylvaja,  p.  313,  1915). 
It  must  be  remembered  that  for  the  first  months  of 
the  war  the  privilege  of  selling  spirits  was  allowed  in 

51 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

first-class  restaurants.  It  is  now  prohibited,  but  beer 
and  wine  are  still  sold,  a  concession  to  the  upper 
classes,  ever  the  most  virulent  enemies  of  Prohibition. 
Wine  and  beer  can  also  be  purchased  in  quantity — 25 
liters  of  the  first  and  24  bottles  of  the  latter.  The  im- 
port of  spirits  from  abroad  is  also  permitted.  Finland 
is,  therefore,  under  a  defective  Prohibition  only,  al- 
though Dr.  Helenius  is  undoubtedly  right  in  his  esti- 
mate that  the  consumption  of  alcohol  in  Finland  now 
stands  nearer  o  than  I  liter  per  capita.  The  official 
statistics  of  drunkenness  are  given  in  Finland's  Sven- 
ska  Nykterhetsforbund  Arskrift,  1915,  p.  186.)  In  the 
TO  chief  cities  the  total  arrests  for  drunkenness  for 
the  period  August-December  in  1912,  1913  and  1914 
were  18,272,  18,616  and  4,408,  respectively.  In  14 
smaller  towns  the  arrests  for  drunkenness  for  the 
same  months  in  1912,  1913  and  1914  were  2,337,  2>37T 
and  529.  The  statistics  for  all  other  crimes  during 
the  same  August-December  period  in  the  10  cities 
were  4,273  in  1912,  4,374  in  1913,  and  2,557  in  1914. 
while  in  the  14  small  towns  it  was  1,017  in  1912,  976 
in  1913  ,and  392  in  1914.  The  spirits  barometer  could 
not  speak  more  plainly.Q 

The  economic  effects  of  Prohibition  find  illus- 
tration in  Finland  as  in  Russia  in  the  statistics  of 
loans  from  pawnshops.  The  number  of  such  for  all 
Finland  was,  in  1914,  485,302  against  539,543  in  1913. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  only  five  months  of  1914 
were  Prohibition  months.  The  Wiborg  Loan  Office 

O  Attempts  have  been  made  to  minimize  the  successes  of  Russian 
Prohibition  by  reference  to  the  fact  that  great  masses  of  men  are  at  the 
front  and  away  from  drink.  But  in  Finland  all  the  men  are  at  home.  The 
•writer,  on  his  wav  to  Petrograd,  passed  through  TTmea  and  across  Finland 
on  a  fifty-hour  ride  on  trains  stopping  at  every  station  and  full  of  soldiers 
and  a  rather  rough  third-class  traveling  public.  He  was  also  in  Petro- 
grad when  the  streets  were  full  of  troops  at  the  calling  put  of  the  reserves. 
Nowhere  in  e'ther  Finland  or  Petrograd  did  he  see  drinking  or  drunken- 
ness. But  at  Umea,  where  he  passed  the  last  night  on  Swedish  soil,  the 
hotel  was  stormed  in  the  night  by  young  and  very  drunken  conscripts 
clamoring  for  lodgings. 

52" 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

gives  the  months  August-December  separately.  There 
were  6,939  loans  of  91,979  marks  in  the  1914  period 
against  10,829  loans  of  132,501  marks  in  1913.  The 
smallness  of  these  loans  shows  that  they  are  made 
chiefly  to  the  very  poor  (Arskrift,  1915,  p.  188). 

In  1912  an  enquete  was  held  in  Helsingsfors  to 
get  the  impressions  of  the  leading  citizens  as  to  what 
Prohibition  would  mean  to  Finland.  The  then  direc- 
tor of  poor  relief,  Colonel  Melart,  prophesied  "an  im- 
mense increase  in  police  expenses  for  the  checking  of 
illicit  sale  with  no  corresponding  decrease  in  drunken 
ness."R  These  lions  in  the  way  have,  on  approach, 
vanished  into  thin  air.  Mr.  Breitholz,  of  the  Poor  Re- 
lief Department,  Helsingfors,  expressed  to  me  the 
satisfaction  of  his  office  with  present  conditions, 
("fewer  applications  for  help ;  children  better  cared 
for")  and  arranged  interviews  with  various  of  his  char- 
ity visitors.  The  testimony  of  these  deaconesses  was 
always  the  same.  "There  is  no  question  that  the  pro- 
hibitory law  has  been  a  blessing.  The  women  espe- 
cially are  gratified  and  want  it  continued.  There  is 
a  marked  improvement  in  food.,  clothing,  and  furniture 
of  the  homes.  The  children,  being  better  fed  and 
clothed,  are  much  quicker  and  brighter  in  school. 

R  Other  contributors  offer  the  usual  anti-Prohibition  wisdom.  Thus 
Prof.  Victor  Heikel,  "A  general  Prohibition  law  would,  in  my  opinion, 
be  only  a  misfortune  for  our  land,  for  we  should  only  be  swamped  with 
Russian  spirits  instead  of  Finnish,  not  to  speak  of  moonshining  and 
smuggling.  .  .  .  Those  who  teach  the  workmen's  wives  to  cook  good 
food  and  keep  a  pleasant  home  do  far  more  for  temperance  than  those 
who  cry  for  a  Prohibition  law.  The  same  can  be  said  for  all  work  which 
encourages  saving."  (As  if  Prohibition,  as  in  Russia,  were  not  the  best 
encouragement  to  saving  among  hundreds  of  thousands.) 

In  the  answer  of  Mr.  Jacques  Ahrenberg,  architect,  we  get  the  meta- 
physical dogmatics  of  the  moderationist.  "Evil  is  eternal  and  neces- 
sary as  good.  A  mechanical  removal  of  vice  is  of  no  value.  (Russia 
again?)  There  must  be  an  inner  transformation.  (But  do  not  outer 
transformations  contribute  to  inner  ones?)  Pastor  Collan.  of  the  Poor 
Relief,  Helsingfors.  has  a  wiser  story.  He  tells  of  his  home  town  in 
Karelia.  "When  beer  was  sold  in  the  hotels  there  was  much  drunk- 
enness. This  ceased  when,  under  local  option,  it  was  prohibited.  Then 
the  railways  came  and  it  was  possible  to  import  it  from  other  places  and 
drunkenness  began  again.  Men  drink  when  they  can  get  drink  and  forget 
about  it  when  it  is  not  accessible.  The  thing  is  simple  enough." 

53 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

Christmas,  1914,  was  one  such  as  very  many  homes 
in  Helsingfors  never  saw  before.  Former  drunkards 
tell  us  that  they  have  not  had,  for  a  dozen  years,  whole 
shoes  until  now.  They  are  glad  that  they  cannot  get 
drink  and  wish  the  same  experience  for  the  Herrene 
(gentry).  We  see  very  little  of  violation  of  law." 

I  talked  with  Dr.  Heilimo,  the  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  government  of  Nyland  (of  which  Helsingfors 
is  the  capital).  He  affirmed  that  the  high  officials  of 
Finland  were  satisfied  with  Prohibition.  There  had 
always  been  considerable  violation  of  excise  laws  in 
Finland  in  the  past,  but  Prohibition  made  it  easier 
to  secure  evidence  against  violators.  The  authorities 
are  now  aware  of  the  devices  of  such  persons  and  are 
enforcing  the  law  with  strictness.8 

As  soon  as  partial  Prohibition  was  ordered  by  the 
government  the  Finnish  people  began  starting  peti- 
tions that  it  be  made  complete  and  permanent.  In 
Helsingfors  (a  city  of  160,000  people  and  the  strong- 
hold of  the  Finnish  alcohol  interests),  they  had  al- 
ready collected  the  signatures  of  43,215  persons  over 
21  years  of  age  when  word  came  from  the  Russian 
Governor  stopping  the  movement.  I  was  interested 
to  learn  from  Prof.  Dr.  Robert  Tigerstedt,  the  physi- 
ologist of  the  University  of  Helsingfors,  that  he  had 
hurried  from  his  laboratory  on  the  last  day  to  the 
store  where  the  petition  had  been  placed  for  signing, 
in  order  to  add  his  signature  before  it  should  be  too 
late.  "I  did  not  believe  Prohibition  possible  and  was, 
therefore,  opposed  to  it,"  he  said  to  me.  "Now  I  re- 
alize that  it  is  both  a  feasible  and  a  satisfactory 

S  Thus  the  Governor  of  Wiborg  Province  condemned  six  persons  in 
Mohla  to  three  months'  imprisonment  each  for  having  bought  malt,  sugar, 
and  yeast  and  brewed  therewith  a  drink  called  "kilju."  which  on  analysis 
was  found  to  contain  3.5  per  cent  alcohol.  The  Governor  of  Tevastehus 
province  fined  three  apothecaries  1,500  marks  apiece  for  having  sold 
cologne  water  for  drink.  The  drug-mixers  begged  permission  to  make, 
instead,  a  contribution  of  the  same  amount  to  the  Red  Cross  if  the  matter 
should  be  kept  quiet,  but  without  avail. — Fram,  Tan.  15  and  Feb.  12,  1915. 

54 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

policy."  Other  professors  in  the  university  expressed 
similar  opinions.  Baron  Korff,  professor  in  the  Rus- 
sian Civil  Law,  was  only  troubled  lest  people  in  Rus- 
sia and  Finland  should  not  be  sufficiently  on  their 
guard  against  the  alcohol  interests,  who  were  even 
then  carrying  on  mole-work  to  undermine  confidence 
in  Prohibition.  Prof.  Laitinen,  now  at  the  head  of 
the  whole  medico-sanitary  system  of  Finland,  while 
warning  against  premature  conclusions,  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  there  had  been  a  sharp  decline 
in  mortality  in  1915  in  Finland  (from  15-16  in  the 
thousand  to  13  plus.) 

Finland  has  long  had  the  start  of  Russia  in  the 
matter  of  alcohol  reform.  For  the  well-to-do  of  Petro- 
grad  it  plays  the  part  of  the  Maine  coast  to  New 
Yorkers.  Its  lakes,  its  woods,  its  long  "white  nights," 
are  its  summer  recreation  capital,  but  there  is,  as  in 
the  Maine  villages,  another  asset.  A  little  guide  to 
Russia  speaks  of  the  Russian  country  districts  within 
reach  of  the  metropolis  as  unattractive,  because  the 
peasants  are  too  often  "dirty,  poor,  and  on  Sundays 
and  holidays  drunken."  Those  in  the  Finnish  coun- 
try districts  on  tb°  other  hand  "are,  because  the  sale 
of  alcohol  out  of  the  towns  is  prohibited — healthy,  in- 
telligent and  sober."  When  the  burghers  of  Petro- 
grad  have  gone  back  to  their  offices  Mondays  they 
are  not  anxious  for  their  wives  and  daughters  on  the 
country  roads  of  Finland.  For  in  Finland  the  long 
alcohol  tentacles  have  been  chopped  off.  The  head 
and  glaring  eyes  of  the  octopus  have  lived  along  in 
the  Company  System  shops  of  Helsingfors  and  some 
other  larger  places,  but  their  days  are  drawing  to  a 
close.  It  is  hard  to  believe  in  view  of  the  rapid  ad- 
vance of  Prohibition  sentiment  in  the  present  genera- 
tion, that  the  most  terrible  famines  known  to  Finland 
were,  so  late  as  1866-67,  due  to  tne  excessive  distill- 

55 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

ing  of  grain  in  1865;  that  at  least  a  fifth  of  the  grain 
supply  of  this  naturally  poor  country  went  ordinar- 
ily, into  the  still,  while  the  people  ground  up  beech 
bark  for  use  in  preparing  bread.T 

VIII 

RUSSIA,  we  may  fairly  say,  has  "solved  the 
drink-problem."     She  has  done  more.     She 
has   discovered   to   the   world   how    simph 
the  problem  really  is.     It  is  the  old  story  of 
Columbus'   egg.     Russia   has   demonstrated   that   we 
need  no  graded  course — regulation,  Gothenburg  Sys- 
tem, local  option,  "education  of  sentiment  up  to  Pro- 
hibition."    No  people  had  less  anti-alcohol  education 
than  the  Russians.     The  law  itself  is  schoolmaster. 
Nothing  educates  more  effectually  either  upwards  or 
downwards.     The  best  education   for  .Prohibition   is 
Prohibition.    Only  the  law  must  be  enforced.    In  Rus- 
sia enforcement  is  possible  through  centralized  auto- 

T  Here  is  another  illustration  of  the  advance  of  afcohol-free  culture 
in  Finland.  The  magnificent  students'  club  on  the  Henriksgade,  Hel- 
singfors — a  club  in  which  both  men  and  women  students  share  without 
the  slightest  embarrassment,  allows  no  alcohol.  The  bar,  which  is  served 
by  girl  students  in  rotation,  provides  fruit  syrups,  Russian  tea,  chocolate, 
buttermilk,  etc.  It  is  all  so  cleanly,  so  high-toned,  so  charming,  and  in 
such  contrast  to  the  beer  brutality  of  German  academic  life  with  its 
bloated  student  faces  and  pale,  overdriven  waitresses.  But  it  was  not 
always  so  in  Helsingfors.  The  hygienist.  Prof.  Sucksdorff,  gives  a  picture 
of  his  student  days  before  university  life  was  purged  of  alcoholism,  which, 
in  view  of  the  immense  improvement,  offers  encouragement  to  anti-alco- 
holists  everywhere. 

"It  was  the  first  of  May  more  than  30  years  ago,"  he  writes.  "At 
that  time  it  belonged  to  the  order  of  the  day  that  May  Day  celebrations 
should  end  in  a  free  fight  in  the  Brunnshus  Hall,  a  fight  of  which  it  was 
said  'It  begins  with  the  students,  draws  in  the  docenten,  and  ends  with 
the  professors.' 

"There  was  a  long  table  in  the  hall  on  which  stood  glasses  and  bot- 
tles with  all  kinds  of  drinks.  The  May  celebrants  joked  and  chaffed  each 
other  and  the  feeling  was  so  friendly  that  a  fight  seemed  impossible.  But 
without  a  fight  no  First  of  May  feast  could  properly  end,  so  certain  young 
polytechnicians  took  it  upon  themselves  to  go  around  and  sharply  cuff 
those  sitting  at  the  tables.  This  naturally  awakened  annoyance  and, 
before  one  was  aware,  a  general  fight  was  agoing.  In  a  moment  the  long 
table  with  glasses  and  bottles  was  removed  by  the  waiters  and  the  whole 
hall  filled  with  a  violent  tumble  in  which  acquaintances  and  strangers  tore 
and  smote  each  other  to  heart's  cohtent."  (P.  66,  Arsskrift.) 

56 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

cracy;   in   the  United   States   it  will  be   possible  by 
federal  action  backed  by  the  women's  vote. 

The  more  radical  and  general  the  Prohibition  the 
more  successful.  Prohibition  "fails,"  not  because 
there  is  too  much  of  it,  but  too  little.  We  have  never 
had  more  than  a  partial  Prohibition  in  any  American 
state  for  no  state  forbids  importation  for  private  use, 
Russia  has  shown  us  a  genuine  and  nearly  complete 
one. 

Russian  Prohibition  has  its  lesson  for  Socialists. 
This  is  that  alcoholsm  is  a  consequence  of  alcohol 
and  not  primarily  of  the  capitalist  system.  It  can 
be  cured  by  removing  alcohol.  It  has  nowhere  been 
remedied  otherwise.  When  alcoholism  is  out  of  the 
way  economic  questions  will  be  susceptible  to  far 
easier  and  quicker  solution.  No  Prohibitionist,  how- 
ever, proposes  that  reform  should  stop  at  Prohibition; 
that  the  producing  classes  should  live  on  land  in  an 
eternal  steerage  such  as  one  sees  in  the  melancholy 
Schliisselburg  suburb  of  Petrograd,  with  its  cotton 
mills,  stearine  factories,  and  iron  works.  They  only 
insist  that  their  own  pressing  reform  be  neither  neg- 
lected nor  deferred,  and  Russian  Prohibition,  the 
midwife  to  a  new  social  order,  justifies  their  insist- 
ance. 

Also  for  the  social  talkers  has  Russian  Prohibi- 
tion its  lesson.  The  theory  of  these  people  is  that 
the  drink  evil  can  be  competed  out  of  existence  by 
"substitutes."  This  has  never  been  done  and  after 
the  Russian  experience  we  may  be  sure  will  never 
be  done.  For  the  substitute  experiment  was  tried 
in  Russia  during  pre-Prohibition  days  on  a  scale 
which  will  forever  discourage  imitation.  The  Offi- 
cial Temperance  Committees  were  given  the  pres- 
tige of  the  highest  official  patronage.  Governors  of 
provinces,  noblemen,  the  metropolitans  of  the  church, 

57 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

served  as  chairmen  or  members.  At  one  time  the  yearly 
appropriations  for  their  work  reached  as  high  a  figure 
as  five  million  rubles.  In  1912  they  supported  3,598 
alcohol-free  tea  and  eating  houses,u  307  inns, 
many  of  them  with  stables  for  horses,  174  night 
asylums,  4,115  loan  libraries,  380  people's  book  shops, 
531  evening  schools,  6,840  places  where  lectures  were 
given,  374  people's  theaters,  1,087  municipal  societies, 
43  bureaus,  where  free  legal  advice  was  dispensed,  13 
employment  bureaus,  13  private  hospitals  for  alco- 
holists,  and  28  other  places  where  drunkards  were 
aided  and  provided  with  medical  advice.  These 
places  were  visited  yearly  by  more  than  90  million 
persons.  The  Norodny  Dom,  or  People's  House, 
near  the  Peter-Paul  Fortress  in  Petrograd,  together 
with  the  five  branches  in  the  city,  is  equipped  with  the 
greatest  lavishness.  Theaters,  concert  halls,  res- 
taurants, carrousels,  a  wide  range  of  deliciously  haz- 
ardous "American  amusements"  welcome  people  of 
all  tastes  and  by  the  ten  thousand.  Tickets  are  sold 
at  low  prices  with  large  blocks  of  free  seats.  Great 
artists,  like  Shaliapin,  the  Russian  baritone,  constantly 
appear  for  the  benefit  of  this  public.  In  short,  every- 
thing has  been  done  to  combat  alcoholism  indirectly 
by  so-called  "positive"  agencies.  There  is  said  to 
have  been  a  considerable  decline  in  the  consumption 
of  vodka  in  Petrograd  as  a  consequence  of  these  great 
expenditures.  This  we  can  well  believe,  although 
in  Moscow,  where  similar  enterprises  were  initiated 
on  a  large  scale  by  the  Grand  Duke  Sergius,  there 
was  in  the  same  period  a  rise  in  consumption  in  spite 
of  the  committee's  efforts.  But  no  one  could  call  the 
activities  of  the  Russian  committees  of  temperance  a 
"solution"  in  the  sense  that  national  Prohibition  has 

U  Meals  were  provided  in  the  village  restaurants  for  5,  8  and  10 
kopecks.  For  tea  with  sugar  and  bread,  3  kopecks  (11-2  cents)  were 
charged. 

58 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

proved  a  solution.  Court  plaster  is  good  and  has  its 
uses,  but  it  is  no  remedy  for  galoping  consumption^ 
The  whole  substitute  theory  is  a  brilliant  illus- 
tration of  traveling  with  the  cart  before  the  horse. 
The  Russians  have  transposed  the  two  successfully. 
Nor  have  they  abandoned  the  cart.  Committees, 
Prof.  Bechterev  tells  me,  are  being  formed  to  pro- 
vide substitutes  for  the  banished  drinkshop  in  all 
cities  and  throughout  the  country  districts.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  press  these  substitutes  upon  a  half-nar- 
cotized people.  They  are  eagerly  demanding  them. 
"The  zemsivos  of  Tambov  and  Kiev  find  it  impossible 
to  establish  all  the  libraries  asked  for  in  the  country." 
"In  the  Viterbsk  government  the  district  semstvos 
are  petitioned  by  the  people  for  lectures."  And  gen- 
erally large  sums  of  money  are  being  already  ex- 
pended by  semstvos  for  such  cultural  purposes.  The 
Kanov  zemstvo  (government  of  Kiev)  has  appropri- 
ated 10,000  rubles  for  instruction  on  the  alcohol  ques- 
tion (that  the  people  may  realize  the  fate  they  have 
escaped!)  Concerts,  theaters  and  cinematographs  are 
being  started  in  places  which  never  before  had  them. 
During  the  autumn  of  1914  there  was  an  increase  in 
attendance  of  30  per  cent  at  two  of  the  Moscow 
Norodny  Doms  in  spite  of  the  war.  The  saving  on 
vodka  enabled  laborers  to  attend  these  places  and  to 
take  their  families  with  them.  Similar  reports  come 
from  Moscow  theaters  and  Moscow  churches  which 
last  are  reported  as  "so  full  that  an  apple  would  have 
no  place  to  fall."  Best  of  all,  the  people  are  in  many 

V  We  would  not  minimize  what  substitute  work  accomplished. 
Neither  can  we  minimize  what  it  is  unable  to  accomplish.  Pr.°*- 
Fortunatov  assembled  statistics  from  state  records  and  those  of  cities 
and  zemstvos,  which  make  clear  the  steady  advance  of  alcohol1' sm  at  least 
up  to  1912.  (Vestnik  Tresvosty,  May-June,  1915).  In  1903  74.500  in 
all  Russia  visited  doctors  for  alcoholism.  In  1912  145.000.  In  1902 
there  were  3,548  reported  alcohol  psychoses;  in  1912,  9,173.  One  can 
see  from  such  statistics  that  these  recreative  provisions  were,  after  all, 
little  more  deep-seated  or  permanent  in  their  effects  than  water  drops 
falling  on  a  red-hot  stove. 

59 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

places  no  longer  depending  on  aristocratic  or  moneyed 
patronage,  but  are  initiating  their  own  substitutes. 
In  the  Gustovar  village  of  the  Bolkhoff  district,  for 
example,  the  peasants,  after  the  Prohibition  of  vodka, 
collected  money  among  themselves  and  purchased  a 
cinematograph  with  12  films.  With  this  they  not 
only  earned  money  to  cover  the  original  investment 
but  to  buy  a  fire  engine  for  the  village. 

By  justifying  the  claims  which  Prohibitionists 
have  made  for  Prohibition  Russia  has  given  us  a 
measure  by  which  to  mete  the  profound  injury  those 
professors,  editors,  and  politicians  have  done  to  our 
social  and  public  life  who,  for  two  generations,  have 
sneered  at  and  blocked  this  policy.  There  are  some 
men  the  American  people  ought  never  to  forgive. 
Whether  they  are  now  conscious  of  it  or  not  they  have 
made  war  on  women  and  children.  They  have  bur- 
dened tens  of  thousands  of  lives  with  a  crushing 
weight  of  inherited  degeneracy.  They  have  made 
our  municipal  public  life  a  public  stench.  They 
have  done  all  this  by  delaying  a  bitterly  needed  major 
operation  and  they  are  so  far  responsible  for  the  so- 
cial gangrene  resulting. 

Russian  Prohibition  will  give  an  impetus  to  Pro- 
hibition enactment  elsewhere.  It  is  already  proving 
an  object  lesson  to  other  countries.  The  mutes  are 
coming  off  the  violins.  When  the  wonderful  five 
weeks  of  national  Prohibition  during  the  1909  Swed- 
ish general  strike  first  showed  the  world  what  na- 
tional Prohibition  would  do  for  a  people,  not  a  whis- 
per of  this  profoundly  interesting  demonstration  got 
to  the  American  public.  But  everybody  knows  of 
Russian  Prohibition.  One  reads  long  and  sympathetic 
accounts  of  it  even  in  such  hitherto  reactionary, an- 
ti-Prohibition papers  as  the  N.  Y.  Times  and  N.  Y. 
Outlook.  The  wider  results  of  the  Russian  move- 

60 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

ment  will  develop  presently.  If  Russia  and  the 
United  States  become  permanently  Prohibition  na- 
tions other  states  will  be  bound  to  follow  as  a  re- 
sult of  economic  pressure.  These  two  mighty  eco- 
nomic units  will  be  as  upper  and  nether  mill-stones 
to  all  states  retaining  their  alcohol  commerce. 


APPENDIX 
Dr.  Anton  Karlgren  on  Vodka  Prohibition 

The  well  known  newspaper  of  Stockholm, 
Dagens  Nyheter,  has  proved  itself  in  late  years,  one 
of  the  most  uncompromising  and  dangerous  enemies 
of  Prohibition  in  Sweden.  When,  therefore,  we  find 
in  its  pages  (Oct.  7,  1915),  a  five-column  panegyric 
of  Russian  Prohibition,  we  can  believe  that  the  facts 
in  regard  to  that  movement  are  of  a  truly  compelling 
character.  This  panegyric  is  written  by  Dr.  Anton 
Karlgren,  the  responsible  editor  of  the  paper,  a  man 
who  possesses  a  thorough  knowledge  of  both  the  Rus- 
sian language  and  of  the  general  conditions  in  Russia. 
He  begins  by  affirming  that  "the  great  Russian  tem- 
perance reform  has  not,  in  Sweden,  been  taken  with 
full  seriousness.  A  people  with  the  experience  of  de- 
cades of  what  temperance  work  implies,  finds  it  un- 
deniably difficult  to  believe  that  the  way  to  popular 
sobriety  is  so  easy  as  that  which  the  Russian  has 
taken  .  .  .  But  one  who,  as  the  undersigned, 
travels  to  Russia  to  make  some  little  study  of  Rus- 
sian Prohibition  and  who  only  expected  to  get  some 
affecting  experience  of  Russian  trick  and  device  for 
evading  Prohibition,  finds  the  scepticism  with  which 
he  had  regarded  this  Russian  Prohibition  measure 
powerfully  shaken.  At  first  he  is  greatly  surprised 
and  at  the  end  seriously  impressed.  ...  A 
wholly  superficial  examination  of  the  reform's  work- 
ings confirms  the  fact  that  the  influence  of  vodka 
Prohibition  to  date  has  been  of  an  almost  revolution- 
ary character." 

Dr.  Karlgren  then  proceeds  to  point  out  that  this 
is  not  a  reform  which  has  been  forced  on  the  people 

63 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

from  above  against  their  will.  There  have  been  for  a 
long  time  back,  constant  appeals  from  the  communes 
and  city  governments  for  prohibitory  measures.  In 
thousands  of  Russian  towns  temperance  organizations 
had  been  established  under  the  leadership  of  so-called 
bratsy,  "little  brothers."  Large  numbers  of  drink- 
shops  were  closed  in  reply  to  the  demands  of  the  agi- 
tation. When  the  rescript  forbidding  vodka  sale  dur- 
ing the  mobilization  was  published  there  came  a  sing- 
ularly unanimous  appeal  from  zemstvos,  co-operative 
unions  ,and  societies  of  the  most  various  kinds,  that 
the  Prohibition  should  endure  for  the  war  period  and, 
if  possible,,  forever.  In  the  beginning  of  September 
the  ukase  appeared  which  forbade  the  sale  of  alcoholic 
drinks  during  war  time.  A  month  later  in  return  to 
a  congratulatory  telegram  from  the  "Union  of  Chris- 
tian Abstainers  in  Russia"  the  Tsar  gave  assurances 
that  he  had  determined  to  end  permanently  the  sale 
of  vodka  in  the  Russian  dominion. 

After  a  year  of  enforced  abstinence  questions 
arise  as  to  the  present  situation.  "In  those  quarters 
within  and  outside  of  Russia  where,  from  the  begin- 
ning, men  looked  with  disfavor  on  Prohibition  it  is 
affirmed  that  it  has  already  lost  all  practical  signifi- 
cance. Whisky  drinkers  in  Russia,  they  assure  us, 
have  known  how  to  arrange  things.  The  consump- 
tion of  drink  under  Prohibition  is  not  much  less  than 
under  the  monopoly.  Certain  Russian  newspapers  do 
all  in  their  power  to  spread  this  idea  by  making  a 
great  noise  about  violations  of  Prohibition  which  have 
been  discovered.  Their  items  on  the  unearthing  of  il- 
licit distilleries,  the  arrest  of  makers  of  substitute 
drinks,  etc.,  are  then  accepted  in  foreign  lands  as  a 
proof  that  the  experiment  has  already  ended  in  fiasco." 
Such  reports  Dr.  Karlgren  explains  are  greatly  exag- 
gerated. "It  is  absolutely  impossible  to  get  either 

64 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

vodka  or  beer."  In  some  cases  wine  and  cognac  can 
be  purchased  illegally,  but  at  absolutely  'hair-raising' 
prices.  Russian  restaurant  life  bears  the  stamp  of 
complete  sobriety.*  Otherwise  it  has  not  greatly 
changed.  Night  life  in  the  restaurants  has,  indeed, 
vanished.  The  great  Moscow  and  Petrograd  estab- 
lishments are  entirely  empty  at  n  o'clock.  But  day- 
times one  cannot  observe  that  Prohibition  has  scared 
away  the  guests  or  lowered  perceptibly  their  good  hu- 
mor. Russians  have,  even  in  gloomy  days,  a  good  load 
of  high  spirits  aboard  and  require  even  less  than  other 
peoples  to  seek  them  in  the  glass."  "They  have 
learned  in  the  past  year  to  prepare  extraordinarily 
pleasant  varities  of  Kvass — bread  kvass,  crust  kvass 
and  the  rest,  which  outdistance  all  Swedish  tem- 
perance drinks  and  might  well  be  introduced  in 
Sweden." 

"During  the  first  period  of  the  war  illegal  distilla- 
tion and  sale  of  vodka  flourished  .  .  .  but  the 
raids  which  were  made  upon  this  traffic  have  been,  as 
we  have  learned  from  various  informants,  entirely  ef- 
fective. At  present  Russian  temperance  men  look 
on  the  widespread  use  of  substitutes  as  the  real  dan- 
ger." .  .  .  "But  the  use  of  these  substitutes  con- 
cerning which  the  enemies  of  Prohibition  make  so 
much  noise  should  not  be  over-estimated.  Those 
who  have  studied  th^  question  more  closely  have 
shown  clearly  J!,at  it  is  only  the  worst  alcoholists 
who  have  resorted  to  them,  in  many  cases  continuing 
the  use  to  which  their  corrupted  taste  had  brought 
them  before  Prohibition.  These  are  persons  who,  if 
they  should  poison  themselves  as  soon  as  possible, 
would  but  thereby  benefit  society.  The  great  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  Russian  people,  we  are  as- 

*  Tips,  according;  to  a  merchant  who  travels  widely  through  the 
country,  are  described  now  commonly  as  nacofe,  or  coffee  money,  instead 
of  by  the  earlier  name  navodka,  vodka  money. 

65 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

sured,  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  use  of 
these  substitutes." 

"One  does  not  have  to  turn  to  statistics  to  prove 
that  Russian  popular  sobriety  is  no  bluff!  Even  the 
most  cursory  visit  to  Russia  gives  an  extremely  power- 
ful impression  of  this  fact.  During  three  weeks'  stay 
in  Petrograd  and  Moscow  I  saw  only  a  single  drunk. 
It  was  a  laborer  out  in  one  of  Petrograd's  suburbs 
who,  one  evening,  sailed  across  the  boulevard  spread- 
ing around  him  an  odor  of  denatured  spirit  which,  for 
a  good  hour,  stifled  all  the  various  other  aromas  of 
a  Russian  street.  But  in  the  proletariat  quarters 
where  formerly  at  certain  hours  of  the  day  one  could 
scarcely  find  a  sober  person,  everywhere  model  con- 
duct as  to  drink  reigned — conduct  which  the  Swedish 
capital  might  well  envy.  The  so-called  Skalm  Market 
Place  of  Moscow,  the  most  degraded  meeting  place 
in  Russia,  had  become  as  sober  as  a  Swedish  Good 
Templar  lodge. 

"When  one  talks  with  Russians  about  the  work- 
ings of  vodka  Prohibition  one  hears  almost  invariably 
the  same  assertion.  The  temperance  reform  can  be 
compared  in  importance  only  with  one  other  great  re- 
form in  Russian  previous  history — the  emancipation 
of  the  serfs." 

While  calling  attention  to  the  danger  of  prema- 
ture conclusions  in  judging  from  one  year's  experience 
only,  Dr.  Karlgren  continues:  "On  tV  other  hand  one 
must  admit  that  the  results  of  Prohibition  which  one 
can  oneself  observe  and  which  are  reported  from  reli- 
able persons  are  really  of  an  astonishing  order." 

"Never  have  Petrograd  and  Moscow  offered  such 
pictures  of  relative  prosperity  as  now,  although  one 
would  have  expected  that  the  war  and  the  high  prices 
would,  on  the  contrary,  have  intensified  the  chronic 
poverty  of  the  large  cities.  It  is  actually  difficult  to 

66 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

recognize  Russian  streets.  One  of  the  most  charac- 
teristic types  of  Russian  street  life,  the  repulsive  beg- 
ging proletariat,  which  before  dogged  every  step  with 
prayers  for  "bread  pennies  in  Christ's  name."  (i.  e., 
money  for  vodka),  has  disappeared  without  leaving  a 
trace.  The  lower  population  strikes  one  as  better  fed 
and  without  question  better  clothed  than  formerly. 
Even  the  Russian  isvostjik  (cabman),  that  incorrig- 
ibly alcoholized  bunch  of  rags,  has  rigged  himself  up 
so  that  one  is  almost  embarassed  to  speak  familiarly 
to  him. 

'In  any  case,  and  here  Russian  opinion  is  unani- 
mous, it  is  in  the  country  districts  that  the  full  ex- 
tent of  the  blessing  of  vodka  Prohibition  clearly  ap- 
pears. One  knows  no  longer  the  Russian  village — 
this  is  the  invariable  opinion  of  all  who  have  studied 
the  thing  closely.  The  hundreds  of  millions  which, 
before,  went  into  whisky,  now  remain  in  the  peasants' 
pockets.  Millions  of  working  days,  before  lost  be- 
cause of  drunkenness  and  its  after-effects,  now  bring 
their  profit  to  the  peasantry.  The  consequence  is  that 
the  Russian  village  is,  so  to  speak,  rolling  in  money. 
Peasants  have  begun  to  eat  meat — a  luxury  which 
formerly  they  enjoyed  but  once  o<r  twice  a  year.  They 
have  begun  to  clothe  themselves  properly,  to  buy 
cattle  and  agricultural  tools.  There  reigns,  in  a  word, 
in  the  Russian  country  hamlets,  a  prosperity  which 
no  one  before  could  have  dreamed  of.  It  has  gone  so 
far  that  city  people  have  actually  begun  to  grumble. 
The  Russian  city's  economy  has  been  based  on  the 
presupposition  of  the  country's  povert)7.  Now  the 
peasants  have  themselves  a  chance  to  consume  their 
own  products  and  provide  themselves  with  city  pro- 
ducts. As  a  consequence  there  is  a  rise  of  prices  in 
the  cities. 

67 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

"My  government,  Tula,"  relates  Count  Bobrim- 
skij,  a  member  of  the  Duma,  "had  a  bad  harvest  last 
year.  In  addition,  as  the  rest  of  Russia,  it  has  had  to 
bear  war's  burdens  and  has  had  its  taste  of  high  prices. 
In  spite  of  all  this  it  has  not  been  necessary  during 
the  winter  to  distribute  a  single  pood  of  grain  for  re- 
lief, nor  in  the  spring  a  single  pood  of  seed,  although 
in  the  year  preceding,  when  there  was  no  crop  failure, 
a  distribution  on  a  very  extensive  scale  had  to  be 
made.  In  spite  of  bad  crops,  war,  and  high  prices, 
the  government  this  year  is  far  richer  than  last  year 
at  the  same  time  and  the  only  explanation  lies  in  Pro- 
hibition. 

"The  impression  of  this  metamorphosis  of  Rus- 
sian society  after  vodka  Prohibition,  which  one's  eyes 
and  the  testimony  of  trustworthy  people  give,  is 
strengthened  when  one  begins  to  study  the  rich  sta- 
tistical material  which  the  first  year  of  temperance 
has  produced.  Absolutely  startling  is  the  witness  of 
the  Russian  savings  banks.  From  August  i,  1913,  to 
April  i,  1914,  6 1-2  million  rubles  were  deposited. 
From  August  i,  1914,  to  April  1,1915,  262  millions. 
.  .  .  One  Duma  member,  the  Nationalist  Leader, 
Krupenski,  laid  the  following  little  picture  before  me: 

"In  my  town  there  are  5,000  inhabitants.  These, 
during  the  last  years,  have  consumed  40,000  rubles 
for  vodka  per  year,  i.  e.,  eight  rubles  per  capita.  Let 
everyone  keep  five  of  these  and  pay  three  in  taxes  and 
let  all  the  200  million  of  Russians  do  the  same  and 
you  will  have  an  income  for  the  state  of  600  millions 
— about  the  amount  of  the  state's  (former)  net  in- 
come from  the  Monopoly."  .  .  . 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

II 

THE    APPEAL    OF   THE    HOLY    SYNOD    FOR 
PERMANENT  PROHIBITION 

(Somewhat  Abridged) 

(After  a  few  months  of  Prohibition  requests  be- 
gan to  pour  in  to  the  Holy  Synod  from  clergy  and 
laity  in  all  parts  of  Russia  asking  that  it  take  action 
in  favor  of  permanent  Prohibition.  In  response  to 
these  appeals  the  Holy  Synod  handed  to  the  Tsar  at 
Tsarkoye  Selo  on  the  2/th  of  April  the  following 
statement.  After  reading  it  the  Tsar  penciled  on  its 
margin  the  memorable  words,  "The  temperance  of 
the  people  is  the  most  trustworthy  basis  for  the  peo- 
ple's strength  and  happiness/') 

Your  Imperial  Majesty!     Great  Emperor! 

The  carrying  out  of  your  majesty's  will  in  the 
Prohibition  of  the  sale  of  alcoholic  drinks  has  put  your 
majesty's  loyal  subjects  in  the  unusual  circumstance 
of  a  new  temperate  life  and  has  given  to  Russia  in- 
numerable blessings.  It  has  brought  back  to  the 
Russian  nation  the  full  consciousness  of  its  divine 
duty  before  God  and  history.  .  .  The  church  authori- 
ties in  the  person  of  the  Holy  Synod  appointed  to 
guard  the  mighty  spiritual  treasures  of  the  Russian 
nation,  cannot  notice  this  fact  of  the  great  moral  re- 
generation of  Russia  without  a  feeling  of  deep  satis- 
faction. .  .  By  the  decree  of  Your  Majesty  the  Rus- 
sian people,  from  whose  weakened  will  the  chains  of 
alcoholism  have  fallen,  are  now  reaching  up  towards 
the  temple  of  the  soul — that  soul  which  your  majesty 
has  indeed  brought  out  of  a  prison  of  misery  by  the 
Prohibition  edict.  Fear  to  God  has  been  awakened. 
Respect  to  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  church  have 
been  strengthened.  Faith  and  old  Russian  godliness 

69 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

have  been  revived.  The  people's  capacity  for  useful 
work  has  been  noticeably  increased.  Criminality  has 
lessened.  Happy  holidays  are  no  longer  darkened  by 
debauchery.  Quarrels  have  ceased.  All  the  peoples 
of  many-ton gued  Russia,  united  in  one  large  and 
peaceful  family,  are  ready  to  fight  the  impudent  in- 
vader to  the  last  drop  of  their  blood.  Moral  stand- 
ards have  developed  in  the  people's  intercourse.  Peace 
and  quiet  have  been  established  in  the  homes.  Fath- 
ers and  mothers  have  found  again  their  lost  children, 
wives  their  husands,  and  children  their  parents.  In 
one  word  the  whole  face  of  the  Russian  Empire  is 
changed.  The  sense  of  morality  among  the  people 
has  risen  and  a  serious  and  pure  religious  sentiment 
has  been  awakened  in  them  to  face  the  trials  sent  of 
God.  .  .  .  It  is  difficult  to  enumerate  all  the  bless- 
ings coming  from  this  great  historic  act  of  the  sober- 
ing of  Russia.  .  .  . 

In  view  of  all  this  the  Holy  Synod  cannot  keep  si- 
lence before  Your  Majesty,  because  of  the  fears  which 
those  self-styled  sponsors  of  public  interest  awaken 
among  us,  the  men  who  are  seeking  to  open  up  again 
the  sale  of  wine  and  beer.  At  the  time  when  most 
men  are  rejoicing  in  salvation  from  that  alcoholism 
which  has  been  stopped  in  its  pernicious  course  by 
the  powerful  action  of  your  royal  word,  certain  per- 
sons, interested  in  the  distribution  of  alcoholic  drinks, 
are  seeking  to  make  a  breach  in  the  defenses  through 
which  alcoholism  may  quickly  again  get  at  the  peo- 
ple and  take  hold  of  them  with  greater  power  than 
ever.  The  danger  of  this  is  especially  great  in  view 
of  the  pleasing  taste  of  those  drinks,  although  their 
use  is  followed  by  no  less  destructive  consequences 
than  the  use  of  spirits.  Accordingly,  neither  beer  nor 
wine  can  be  considered  useful  agencies  in  the  fight 
against  alcoholism. 

70 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

Therefore,  the  most  Holy  Synod,  speaking  for 
both  pastors  and  flocks,  bowing  before  this  great  his- 
toric act  of  Your  Majesty,  directed  to  the  sobering  of 
Russia,  considers  it  to  be  its  sacred  duty  to  apply  to 
you,  Great  Monarch,  with  a  common  prayer  that  the 
restrictions  upon  all  alcoholic  drinks  may,  in  the  fu- 
ture, retain  their  active  power  for  the  good  and  sal- 
vation of  your  subjects  in  Russia. 

VLADIMIR,  Metropolitan  of  Petrograd. 

FLAVIAN,  Metropolitan  of  Kiev. 

MACAR1US,  Metropolitan  of  Moscow. 

SERGIUS,  Archbishop  of  Finland. 

NIKON,  former  Archbishop  of  Vologda. 

ARSENIUS,  Archbishop  of  Novgorod. 

SERAPHIM,  Archbishop  of  Irkutsk. 

CONSTANTINE,  Bishop  of  Moguiliev. 

DEMETRIUS,  Bishop  of  Riasan. 

INNOCENT,  ex-Bishop  of  Polotsk. 

Ill 

THE  RESOLUTION  OF  THE  PIROGOV 
SOCIETY 

(The  Pirogov  Society  is  the  leading  medical  so- 
ciety of  Russia.  It  takes  its  name  from  the  great 
nineteenth  century  Russian  surgeon,  Pirogov.  In  the 
29th  number  of  Russky  Wratch  (The  Russian  Phy- 
sician) for  1915,  is  the  report  of  a  resolution  regarding 
the  alcohol  question  in  Russia  in  its  present  Prohibi- 
tionist phase,  which  the  society  passed  on  the  28th 
of  May,  1915.  After  affirming,  the  importance  of  the 
fight  against  "our  great  national  evil  that  corrodes 
the  people's  strength  and  soul,"  the  society  states  that 
it  considers  it  "a  matter  of  duty"  to  publish  the  fol- 
lowing document.  Said  document  is  couched  in  a 
series  of  lapidary  theses.) 

71 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

A.  As  to  the  essential  valuation  of  alcohol  and 
alcohol-holding  substances. 

I.  Scientific  facts  (drawn  from  physiology,  path- 
ology and  clinical  experience)  compel  us  to  place  al- 
cohol and  substances  containing  alcohol  in  the  class 
of  poisonous  and  injurious  things.  Alcohol  is  a  typical 
narcotic  poison  which,  taken  in  small  doses,  from 
the  beginning,  disturbs  the  highest  functions  of  the 
brain-cells  and  consequently  causes  a  series  of  pleas- 
ant but  illusory  feelings  of  warmth,  energy,  bravery, 
etc. 

2-     With   repeated   consumption    of    small    doses 
(so-called  "moderation")  the  number  of  disturbances 
in  the  organism  increases.    This  increase,  however,  is 
slow  and  gradual  and  consequently  is  unnoticed  by 
the  drinker  as  well  as  by  those  about  him.    The  use 
of  small  doses  of  alcohol — always  a  narcotic  poison — 
develops  in  some  men,  whose  constitutions  are  weak, 
severer  forms  of  alcoholism  that  are  obviously  the 
cause  of  much  personal  and  social  unhappiness.     It 
has  been  proved  that  a  regular  consumption  of  small 
doses  increases  morbidity,  mortality,  the  number  of 
accidents,  mental  sicknesses,  suicides,  crime  of  every 
type,  a  both    qualitative    and    quantitative    minus  of 
capacity  in  both  mental  and  physical  work.    The  con- 
cept "moderation"  cannot  be  used  for  habitual  use  of 
alcoholic  drinks  since  the  customary  use  of  a  poison 
is  non-moderation  and  misuse. 

3.  Inasmuch  as  substances  injuring  the  body 
cannot  be  considered  food,  the  society  cannot  classify 
alcohol  as  a  food.  For  this  reason  beer  and  wine  can- 
not be  considered  nourishing  or  strengthening  or  hy- 
gienic drinks. 

72 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

B.     Concerning  measures  of  a  negative   character 
m  the  fight  against  alcohol     Prohibition, 

4.  Mass   alcoholism   is   a   very   many-sided   and 
age-long  social  evil  and  one  sustained  by  a  combina- 
tion of  causes  (economic,  cultural,  physiological  and 
psychological).     Because  of  this  the  fight  against  al- 
cohol must  take    into    consideration  a  multitude    of 
measures. 

5.  Alcohol's  fundamental  character  as  a  narcotic 
poison  indicates  that  alongside  other  measures,  pro- 
hibitory ones  are  necessary.    As  a  first  step  in  a  dif- 
ficult path  prohibitory  measures  have,  judging  from 
the     experience  of  many  lands,   great     significance. 
Without  them  it  is  impossible  to  have  a  reliable  and 
vigorous  movement  against  alcohol.    Therefore,  it  is 
not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty  of  the  government  to 
undertake     prohibitory     and     restrictive     legislation 
against  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  alcoholic  liquors 
as  is  the  case  with  other  poisons. 

6.  A  whole  mass  of  existing  facts  allow  us  to  be- 
lieve that  the  cessation  of  the  traffic  in  drink  in  Rus- 
sia has  contributed  to  a  diminution  of  sicknesses  of 
various  sorts  (including  venereal  and  mental  diseases) 
accidents   (especially   railway    ones),   fires,    suicides, 
crimes  and  to  an  increase  of  industry    and    material 
wealth  in  the  population. 

7.  The  extension  of  the  use  of  wine  and  beer  can- 
not be  a  remedy  against  alcoholism  because  they  lead 
tc    alcoholism    (the   well-known   beer-alcohoiism   of 
Western  Europe).     Beer  and  wine  are,  on  the  con- 
trary, dangerous  because  being    weaker    and    more 
pleasant  to  the   taste,   they   attract  women  and  chil- 
dren. 

8.  Public  bodies  legislating  for  the  public  health 
should  be  granted  the  right  to  pass  compulsory  meas- 

73 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

ures  for  the  stopping  of  the  sale  of  liquors.  The  many- 
sided  and  pressing  interests  of  the  many  millions  of 
Russia's  population  must  be  considered  before  the  nar- 
rower interests  of  a  little  group  representing  the  al- 
cohol interests. 

9.  The  Meeting  regards  as   necessary  that  not 
only  internal  manufacture,  but  also  import  from  abroad 
be  forbidden. 

C.     Measures  of  a  positive  character.     General  so- 
cial measures. 

10.  The  Meeting  considers  that  in  the  struggle 
against  such  a  complex  social  evil  as  alcoholism,  it  is 
not  possible  to  stop  with  merely  prohibitive  measures 
of  a  negative  character.    These  but  constitute  a  bet- 
ter basis  for  positive  social,  economic  and  cultural  ac- 
tion which  should  be  as  immediate  and  as  vigorous 
as  possible. 

11.  One  of  the  most  important  causes  of  mass 
alcoholism  lies  in  the  instinctive  effort  among  wage- 
workers  to  deaden  the  burdensome  feelings  that  are 
a  consequence  of  a  depressed  nervous  system.    These 
feelings  are  chiefly  the  result  of  abnormal  conditions 
in  life  and  work.     In  order,  therefore,  to  eradicate  al- 
coholism the  Meeting  considers  it  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  adopt  measures  of  a  social  character  that  will 
contribute  to  the  abolition    of  the    above-mentioned 
abnormal  conditions.     To  these  belong  shortening  of 
the  working  day,  raising  of  wages,  suppression  of  over- 
time, improvement  of  dwellings  and  food,  the  organ- 
izing of  various  insurance  enterprises  with  self-admin- 
istration,  the  introduction  of  such   legal  changes  as 
will  facilitate  more  general  activity  among  the  work- 
ing people,  both  in  trades  unions  and  in  politics.     In 
order  to  raise  the  cultural  niveau  of  the  masses  it  is 
necessary  for  the  local  authorities  to  work  in  this  di- 

74 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

rection.     Therefore,  the  organs    of    local    administra- 
tion must  be  reformed  upon  democratic  basis. 

12.  Society's    battle    against    alcoholism    among 
the  country  people  can  succeed  only  under  local  self- 
government.     Therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  introduce 
a  smaller  rural  unit  as  a  basis  for  democratic  self-gov- 
ernment in  all  Russia.* 

D.     Anti-alcohol  instruction  outside  the  schools. 

13.  One  of  the  chief  causes  of  mass  alcoholism  is 
the   complete   ignorance  of  the    nature  of    alcoholic 
drinks  and  a  whole  category  of  stupid  prejudices  in 
their  favor.     (This  is  true  not  only  of  so-called  com- 
mon people,  but  of  the  intelligentia  also.)     A  broadly 
based  propaganda  of  all  scientific  facts  bearing  on  the 
alcohol  question  is  necessary.  To  this  end  anti-alcohol 
exhibitions,  especially  of  a  traveling  type,  would  be 
useful ;  also  anti-alcohol  lectures  with  demonstrations, 
anti-alcohol  literature  and  placards. 

14.  In  order  that  anti-alcohol  instruction  outside 
the  school  may  serve  to  de-alcoholize  the  people  the 
following  conditions  must  be  observed:    The  people's 
initiative  in   general    educational    enterprises    under 
communal  self-government  must  be  supported.  There 
must  be  energetic  support  of  co-operative  enterprises 
and  of  trades  unions  and  of  popular  educational  so- 
cieties.     People's  Houses  must  be  introduced  which 
will  serve  persons  of  all  classes  and  strengthen  the 
idea  of  a  temperate  life.    There  must  be  a  populariza- 
tion of  art,  erection  of  people's  theaters,  formation  of 
people's  orchestra,  etc.     These  must  be  under  popular 
control,  since  the  good  effects  of  such  enterprises  for 
fighting  narcotic  desire  come  not  only  from  aesthetic 
pleasure,  but  from  participation  in  management. 

*  This  and  succeeding  political  allusions  seem,  perhaps,  somewhat 
irrelevent,  but  such  unexpected  remarks  often  occur  in  Russian  popu- 
lar documents.  They  are  expressions  of  the  general  longing  for  freer 
action  in  state  and  society. 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

M.     Tht  communication  of  anti-alcohol  instruction 
t$  pupils  in  the  schools. 

15.  It  is  proved  that  the  beginnings  of  alcohol- 
ism among  adults  often  go  back  to  the  years  of  child- 
hood, especially  to  school  years  when  children,  under 
the  influence  of  parents  and  other  elders,  learn  to  use 
alcohol.    Alcohol's  harmful  action  upon  the  organism 
expresses    itself  more     sharply  in  children    than  in 
adults.     It  injures  especially  the  nervous  system  and 
makes  the  child's  system     less  resistant  to  diseases. 
Therefore,  the  fight  against  the  alcoholization  of  the 
child  should  be  carried  on  in  the  most  energetic  fashion 
by  all  social  institutions    (paedagogic,    medical    and 
parental).     This  preventative  fight  against  child  al- 
coholism will  be  more  fruitful  than  that  against  the 
chronic  alcoholism  of  older  persons. 

16.  The  best  method  is  to  give  school  children 
instruction  as  regards  alcohol's  harmful  action.    Such 
instruction  should  begin  in  the  first  stage  of  school  life, 
for  example,  in  the  narrative  of  the  reading  books. 

17.  The  school  can  and  should  work  upon  the 
family  so  that  elders  will  not  give  alcoholic  drinks  to 
their  children  or  use  them  themselves.    With  schools 
should   be   connected   people's   libraries   and   reading 
rooms,  with    books  on  the    alcohol     question.       The 
hindrances   which   prevent   popular   anti-alcohol   lec- 
tures and   expositions  in  the  schools   should  be   re- 
moved.     In    the    organization    of    such    efforts    the 
semstvos   and    communal    authorities    should    partici- 
pate.   In  the  secondary  schools  the  peasants'  commit- 
tees should  co-operate  in  the  provision  of  anti-alcohol 
lectures.    The  educational  system  should  be  reorgan- 
ized in  order  to  give  more  freedom  to  the  children  and 
more  respect  to  personality. 

76 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

P.     The  Medical  Corps. 

19.  Participation  in  the  fight  against  alcohol  is  a 
duty  of  every  unit  in  society,  of  every  citizen,  and  most 
of  all  of  the  doctors.    The  basic  thought  of  the  med- 
ical profession  makes  it  incumbent  upon  doctors  to 
fight  in  the  front  ranks  in  the  movement  against  al- 
cohol.    This  movement  is  necessary  for  the  physical 
and  mental  health  both  of  present  and  future  genera- 
tions. 

20.  Recognition   is   given   to  the  principle  that 
every  physician  has  the  right  to  use  the  remedy  which 
he  deems  most  useful.       The  Meeting,  nevertheless, 
calls  attention  of  Russian  physicians  to  the  following 
facts : 

(a)  That  alcohol  has  a  wholly  special  position 
among  other  narcotic  substances — ether,  chloroform, 
morphine,   etc. — because    it  is   so   accessible    to    all. 
Physicians'  prescription  of  strong  liquors  as  "strength- 
ening   remedies"    acts  as  a  hindrance    in    the    fight 
against  alcohol  because  it  gives  a  false  idea  of  alco- 
hol's value. 

(b)  This  giving  of  alcohol  upon  prescription  is 
a  cause  of  alcoholism  among  invalids. 

(c)  From  the  statements  of  many  chemists  and 
investigators  we  may  infer  that  the  internal  use  of 
alcohol  is  of  no  help  to  the  sick  and  can  well  be  aban- 
doned in  their  treatment.    Therefore,  the  Meeting  con- 
siders that    physicians    should    avoid    in    every  way 
prescribing  alcohol   and   seek  to  make  use  of  other 
remedial  agents. 

21.  At  the  same  time  the  Meeting  would  call  the 
attention  of  the  whole  medically-educated    world    to 
the  necessity  of  a  new  revision  of  the  whole  question 
of  alcohol's  value  as  a  medicine  and  to  the  need  of 
subjecting  this  question  to  a  thorough  unpartisan  in- 

77 


RUSSIAN     PROHIBITION 

vestigation  in  laboratories,  learned  societies,  and  con- 
gresses of  specialists. 

22.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  newspapers  publish 
statements  affirming  that  certain   persons  with  doc- 
tor's title  openly  and  for  personal  profit,  misuse  their 
rights  by  writing  prescription  for  spirituous   drinks, 
for  which  conduct  some  have  been  punished  by  the 
authorities,   the    Meeting   considers   said   conduct   by 
physicians  as  a  violation  of  the  doctor's  oath.  (In  Rus- 
sia, when  physicians  are  inducted  into  the  profession, 
they  are  required  to  take  formal  oath  "to  fight  for  life 
and  against  death."     Translator.) 

23.  In  view  of  the  alcohol  question's  great  so- 
cial significance  the  medical  faculties  of  the  universi- 
ties should  acquaint  the  students  with  it.    Post-gradu- 
ate courses   for  physicians  and  for  assistants   ought 
also  to  be  established. 

G.     On  Substitutes. 

24.  Data  concerning  the  internal  use  of  various 
substitutes  for  vodka.,  the  use  of  which  leads  to  seri- 
ous hygienic  consequences    and    which    lately    have 
awakened  much  attention  among  the  public,  indicate 
that  in  extent  and  significance  the  evils  of  these  sub- 
stitutes are    negligible,    compared    with    those  which 
vodka  and  other  liquors  caused  to  the  general  health. 
The  exaggerated  importance  which  is  still  given  to 
these  substitutes  can  be  explained  partly  by  the  ob- 
viously serious  results  of  certain  cases  of  poisoning; 
partly  by  the  circumstance  that  persons  interested  in 
the  alcohol  industry  purposely  over-estimated  the  sig- 
nificance of  these  substitutes.    This  is  done  in  order  to 
prove  that,  among  the  people,  there  exists  an  irresist- 
ible need  for  alcohol  and  that  it  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  satisfy  this  need  by  allowing  the  trade  in  at 
least  weaker  drinks.       Otherwise,  they  say,  there  is 

78 


RUSSIAN    PROHIBITION 

great  danger  of  mass-poisoning  with  substitutes  for 
alcoholic  drinks. 

25.  In  order  to  get  at  the  real  facts  concerning 
the  extent  to  which  substitutes  are  being  used  the 
Meeting  prays  the  management  of  the  Russian  Med- 
ical Society  in  memory  of  Pirogov,  to  organize  over 
all  Russia  an  inquiry,  the  systematic  program  of  which 
shall  be  drawn  up  by  scientists,  men  in  professional 
life  and  provincial  and  communal  corporations. 

H.     On  the  necessity  of  further  study  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

26.  The   Meeting  appeals   to   hospitals,   factory 
and  railway  managements  to  collect  conscientiously 
and  to  communicate  to  the  Russian  Medical  Society 
in  Memory  of  Pirogov,  statistical  material  concern- 
ing the  difference  in  morbidity  (general  and  individ- 
ual, venereal   and   mental),   mortality   and   accidents, 
between  the  Prohibition  period  and  preceding  years. 

27.  This  Meeting,    which    has    been    especially 
called  because  of  the  present  situation,  has  expressed 
its  opinion   upon  the  most  important  phases  of  the 
many-sided  alcohol  question.     In  this  question  there 
are  many  not  sufficiently  studied  phases  which  could 
not  be  discussed  in  the  short  three-day    session    and 
during  the  exceptional  circumstances    of    war    time. 
Since  it  is  necessary  thoroughly  to  examine  all  sides  of 
this  great  social  evil  in  quieter  times  and  with  more 
thorough  preparation,  the  Meeting  prays  the  directors 
of  the  Russian  Medical  Society  in  Memory  of  Pirogov 
to  call  together  at  suitable  opportunity,  a  special  meet- 
ing devoted  entirely  to  the  fight  against  alcohol. 


A  PARTIAL  LIST  OF  GOOD  BOOKS  ON  THE 
PROHIBITION  QUESTION 

Price 
Russian  Prohibition  —  Ernest  Gordon.  Paper 

bound,  80  pages $  .25 

Anti-Saloon  League  Year  Book,  1916 — E.  H. 

Cherrington.  Paper  25 

Diseases  of  Inebriety — T.  D.  Crothers.  M.  D. 

Cloth,  400  pp 2.15 

Cutting  It  Out — Samuel  G.  Blythe.  Board  cov- 
ers, 60  pp 40 

History  of  The  Anti-Saloon  League — E.  H. 

Cherrington.  Cloth,  161  pp 50 

Scientific  Temperance  Hand  Book  -  -  Cora 

Frances  Stoddard,  A.  B.  Paper,  100  pp 50 

Temperance  Progress  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 

— Woolley  and  Johnson.  Cloth,  517  pp.  ...  2.00 
Moral  Law  arid  Civil  Law — Col.  Eli  F.  Ritter. 

Cloth,  278  pp 1.00 

Wealth  and  Waste — Alphonso  A.  Hopkins,  Ph.D. 

Cloth  1.10 

The  Federal  Government  and  the  Liquor  Traffic 

—William  E.  Johnson.  Cloth,  275  pp 1.00 

The  Saloon  Problem  and  Social  Reform — John 

M.  Barker,  Ph.D.  Cloth,  212  pp 1.00 

The  Anti-Alcohol  Movement  in  Europe — Ernest 

Gordon.  Cloth,  333  pp 1 .50 

The  Liquor  Problem  in  Russia — William  E. 

Jr^nson.  Cloth,  230  pp 1.00 

Quarrytown— -Douglas  A.  Dobbins.  Cloth,  273  pp.  1.00 
A  Campaign  Courtship — Paul  Peniman.  Boards 

131    pp 1.50 

Send  a  postcard  for  our  catalogues  of  the  famous 
Scientific  Temperance  Posters  in  colors,  telling  pamph- 
lets, industrial  and  other  leaflets,  and  boolv.  not  listed 
here.  Applications  and  orders  will  receive  prompt 
attention.  Address 

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